


a little trouble

by finalizer



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Humor, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Soft Angbang
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-23
Updated: 2017-12-09
Packaged: 2018-04-16 21:48:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 21
Words: 40,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4641381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/finalizer/pseuds/finalizer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which everything is almost the same, except Arda is a small suburban town in the middle of nowhere and everyone's favorite dark lords are that weird, annoying couple that live in the old, haunted looking house down the road.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Day In The Life

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am very much aware that these guys are inherently evil tyrants in canon, but i honestly don't think that sort of behavior would pass in a suburban town, so please excuse the not so slight alterations to their personalities 
> 
> psa: to stay as canon-compliant as i possibly can i have mairon working as manwë's assistant, spying for melkor's rival company. what a cliché
> 
>    
>  _chapter 1 timeline: around 7 months after first meeting_

The first sign that something was wrong became evident when Mairon’s predilection for aggressive door slamming made a comeback.

First it was his car door, which Melkor heard very loud and clear from his spot on the living room couch where he lounged with a can of soda in hand. A minute or so later, the slam was followed by the furious jittering of keys in the lock, then the second slam, as Mairon managed to get the doors open and immediately shoved them shut once he’d stepped inside.

And if the multitude of loud Mairon-induced noises wasn't evidence enough to prove something was off, the irritation on his face was plain as day. But of course, he’d deny it.

“Something wrong?” Melkor asked innocently. His vaguely amused tone spoke for itself, but Mairon failed to notice because he was _fuming_. He kicked his shoes off angrily and then, also angrily, neatly set them aside by the doorway. Even in dire times, perfection was mandatory.

Eventually, he answered the question. “No,” he muttered, in the cryptic way one would answer if they were, in fact, very angry but pretending they were very not angry, “everything’s peachy.”

Melkor was bored and still had some soda left, so he decided he could indulge the moping for a while. “Bad hair day?”

Mairon paused halfway through his murder walk to the kitchen and leveled Melkor with an offended glare. He _didn’t_ _have_ bad hair days, which Melkor knew and was teasing him. The probability of Mairon having a bad hair day was slighter than that of the moon falling from orbit and slamming into the Earth.

In response, Melkor shrugged and took a sip, allowing Mairon to continue with his rampage. He may have been small, but his temper spoke for itself: Melkor feared for the kitchen appliances.

Out of Melkor’s immediate line of sight, he heard the telltale clatter of glass against glass as the fridge door was roughly tugged open, jars and bottles clicking against each other with the impact.

Then followed the distinct sound of various things being tossed onto the counter — Mairon was making a sandwich, and a big sandwich at that. Stress eating was uncommon, though it was a blessing for everyone involved that Mairon had decided to partake in the ritual at home, rather than victimize innocent working-class civilians at the local Subway.

Just as Melkor was about to ask again, Mairon snapped.

“You know what,” began his tirade, “ _no_. Everything is _not_ okay.”

There was some more clattering as he pulled out spoons and knives, and whatever other diabolical devices he needed to complete his masterpiece. Melkor’s guess was as good as any at this point, but he was in no mood to pull himself up off the couch to go observe Mairon’s endeavors.

“I am sick and tired of Aulë upstaging me,” Mairon droned on. “He seems to think that just because he’s higher in the damn hierarchy, he can push me around, get me to do all this complicated shit for him, and then take the fucking credit for everything — ”

Mairon trailed off and cursed under his breath. Either he was having trouble opening some jar or he couldn’t reach one of the top shelves. Either was plausible, Melkor thought, because both had the tendency to take place very, very often.

There was some distant thudding and Melkor figured it was the latter, and Mairon was currently scrambling onto the counter to grab something from the top of the cupboards. It made for an amusing mental image but Melkor made no move to actually go and see for himself (he’d seen it plenty of times: Mairon’s irritated expression at being too short to reach _anything_ was permanently ingrained in his subconscious). 

Once Mairon had gotten whatever he needed and hopped off the counter, he landed with a soft thump on the floor and continued rambling. “Like, I had to drive to four different offices and talk to a dozen daft morons to get a damn contract form for the negotiations next week and I bring it to him right before we have to walk into Manw — your brother’s office, and he stalks in there and doesn’t even fucking mention that I nearly broke my neck getting my hands on it, and it’s like I’m not even there — ”

He cut off again, this time reappearing from inside the kitchen, walking over to Melkor with a crease of frustration between his brows. He was holding a jar of mayo. “Can you open this damn thing?”

Melkor took the jar and popped the lid on the first attempt. Mairon’s frown deepened. He took the mayo and retreated back to the kitchen.

“And it shouldn’t matter that he’s assistant director or whatever bullshit he’s calling himself nowadays,” Mairon kept saying, “because if he didn’t do squat he shouldn’t be claiming to have done it, not when others worked their asses off to make it happen — ”

He was getting too riled up, that much Melkor could tell — Mairon’s voice growing more tense with every sentence, his breathing more erratic than it was on a good day. It didn't bode well when the anger simmered and boiled inside him to the point it couldn't help but explode outwards. Occasionally, things got smashed in the name of stress relief; many a vase had made the honorable sacrifice.

Melkor sighed a great big sigh and set his soda down on the coffee table, then wearily rose to his feet and all too quietly padded towards the kitchen. Mairon was likely too preoccupied with his rage to hear him coming.

As expected, Mairon didn’t notice Melkor's approach until he set a jar down onto one counter and swiveled around to get something from the other side, and ended up slamming straight into Melkor’s chest. In hindsight, it was lucky he wasn’t brandishing a butter knife, or worse, the _mayonnaise_.

Mairon took an instinctive step back — as far as he could go without backing himself into the counter — and braced his palms on Melkor’s chest, trying to keep himself upright. Melkor, in turn, took Mairon’s face in both hands and gently lifted his chin to get him to look up. Mairon did, and the furrow of his brow softened ever so slightly. There was something in the touch that helped root him to reality, and immediately rearranged his priorities to make space for what really mattered. Work, damn it, was not one of those things. Melkor leaned down and pressed his lips to Mairon’s forehead. Mairon breathed a full bodied sigh, like the action had taken eons of unwanted anxiety out of the equation, and leaned desperately into the touch.

Melkor pulled him closer. “You forget to breathe, Mairon.”

“I’ll breathe when Aulë gets his head out of his pompous ass,” came the muffled reply, as Mairon buried his face in the folds of Melkor’s sweater.

“Knowing Aulë, you will most surely suffocate,” Melkor told him. The moment lasted a blissful few seconds, until he shot a glance at the counter over the top of Mairon’s head, eyeing the world’s most magnificent sandwich with hungry eyes. “That looks heavenly. You didn’t make me one?”

Mairon grumbled something akin to, “You’re ruining the moment.”

“Babe, I want a sandwich like that.”

“ _You’re ruining the moment_.”

“It has olives _and_ green peppers.”

“Please shut your mouth.”

 


	2. Waking Hours

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which everything is almost the same, except Arda is a small suburban town in the middle of nowhere and everyone's favorite dark lords are that weird, annoying couple that live in the old, haunted looking house down the road.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> note: the headcanon is that melkor's company is called _utumno_ (rival to manwë's _valinor_ ) bc as u see i am sticking to canon 100% mhm absolutely
> 
> _timeline: around 1 year after first meeting_

Melkor worked best in the mornings, unlike Mairon, who was inhumanly capable of staying up past some ungodly hour in the night to complete whatever he’d started working on hours before. He made up for it by sleeping in 'til noon, burrowing into his pillows and blankets to the point where only a mop of copper hair poked through. 

But not Melkor, no — at night his only thoughts were either of sleep or sex, neither of which allowed too much work to get done.

That was why he spent most mornings, often before the sun even came up, sitting at his desk in the slightly dilapidated sunroom downstairs (which acted as his office, for all intents and purposes), shuffling through the paperwork he had to catch up on, leaving a soundly sleeping Mairon bundled in the covers of their master bed upstairs. 

He was a considerate guy, when the mood arose — that being the reason he’d bought himself the quietest espresso machine the internet had to offer, for when he sat down at his desk at ass o’ clock in the morning with a cup of coffee, not wanting to wake Mairon with the irksome sputtering sounds before the sun even came up. And Melkor, the damned insomniac, managed to make quite the number of coffees before Mairon even stumbled downstairs.

As was the case now — a chilly Wednesday morning, four in the morning — as Melkor wouldn't have fallen back asleep if his life depended on it, and had made his way downstairs to go through roughly three hundred financial reports he’d yet to review before handing them over to his accountants (so he was lagging a _bit_ behind, sue him).

It was cold enough to earn a double espresso, but warm enough for Melkor to stay in his pajamas; not because he was lazy, but what better way for a responsible CEO to dress than baggy black sweatpants and gray v-neck — the attire of lords, truly. He hated suits with a passion: anything that constricted his movements (and his nonchalant attitude) to that degree should very well be outlawed. 

Six or seven reports into the morning, birds started singing outside. Though to Melkor, who hadn't gotten much sleep that night, or any other night that week, it sounded more like high pitched screeching. Oh, well. Life went on, and certain people fueled themselves with exceptionally intense doses of caffeine to make up for their heavily messed up REM cycles.

With a huff of annoyance, Melkor blew his hair of his face for the umpteenth time that morning, eventually giving up on his unruly black mop and fumbling around his pockets for a hair tie. Unsurprisingly, he found two. In this household, they were everywhere. He and Mairon both had the tendency to get fed up with wayward strands, he and Mairon both excelled at losing the hair ties and constantly found them laying all over the place. It was convenient but more so tragically annoying when they got stuck in the tube of the vacuum.

He put no effort whatsoever into bunching his hair up into a truly horrendous ponytail and flicking it over his shoulder, forcing himself to concentrate on the numbers he was reading through before the sun came up and with it Mairon, immediately dismissing any thoughts Melkor may have had about work. That was the only upside of the early morning workaholic sprees — it was the only time Melkor could focus on the paperwork. Once Mairon came downstairs, the flash of copper in his peripheral vision would prove too much for Melkor to resist. He was a lovesick fool, and he owned it. 

There were three cups of coffee on his desk now, because Melkor had an irrational habit of using a new mug every time he got up to refill (it was because he was too lazy to go back for the previous one, no matter how much he tried to deny that version of events), and the stack of reviewed documents was steadily growing, marking some sort of significant progress he’d made that morning. He deserved a pat on the back, and a monthlong vacation.

The current time was a mystery to him, but the sun had been up for almost an hour now, which could’ve meant five or six in the morning, depending on the weather and atmospheric pressure and a whole lot of other variants Melkor wasn’t willing to ponder upon. He didn't have an actual deadline, as being the big boss man in charge allowed him to prance into the office whenever he pleased and make his own rules when the old ones no longer suited his fancy. Even so, he was behind on his work, and the thought continued nagging at his subconscious. 

The quiet shuffling from the bedroom above and the following soft footfalls on the stairs registered somewhere in the back of Melkor's mind, but he didn’t pay them too much thought — not until Mairon stepped into the office and the old floors (they just looked new, mind you, but the foundation of the house was ancient) gave a tremendous creak that gave away his presence. 

Melkor pretended not to notice. Or maybe he didn’t notice, what with his eyes glued to the pages he was comparing and whatnot. It was easy to get lost in the numbers, no matter how freakishly, inherently good at math he was.

It wasn’t until two warm arms wrapped around his waist and a chaste kiss was pressed to the side of his neck, that Melkor allowed himself to turn his mind to something other than his accounting bills. Just like that, the importance of work diminished to a negative, and one thing and one thing only remained burning in his mind. It was never easy for Melkor to think straight when there was a groggy, pliable Mairon latched onto him, swaying on his feet and likely still half asleep.

Mairon muttered a slurred good morning into Melkor’s neck and yeah, he was more than half asleep. Melkor decided that just wouldn’t do.

He dropped the papers to the side of the desk, deliberately careful not to make a mess of anything he’d spent so long organizing, before getting to his feet as slowly as possible, careful not to knock Mairon over in the process. He was swaying like a weightless leaf in the wind, and the smallest calculated motion could set him tumbling to the ground.

“Why aren’t you in bed?” Melkor asked softly, though the answer was usually the same, on the increasingly common instances where Mairon would pad downstairs in the early hours Melkor spent at his desk.

“Didn’t wanna stay up there alone,” came the mumbled reply. His words blended into each other amidst his tired haze, but his linguistic coherency never failed — Mairon always did talk too much for his own good. “Got cold. Couldn’t sleep.”

Melkor stepped around his chair and pulled Mairon against him, sensing that he was on the verge of falling back asleep where he stood.

Melkor pressed a gentle kiss to his forehead and brushed his fingers through those impeccable amber locks that never seemed to tangle (no matter what they did or where they did it, honestly), as Mairon leaned heavily against his chest, breathing shallow and tired.

And though Melkor had, on more than one occasion, carried a sleeping Mairon to bed and where not, he figured the couch was a better call this time around — it was generously big and, most importantly, much closer to the espresso machine than the bedroom was.

Mairon followed on wobbly legs as Melkor led him over to the living room, laying down first and waiting for Mairon to shuffle in beside him, before grabbing the fleece blanket that always hung off the side of the couch to cover them both. It wasn’t necessary to retain temperature, but Mairon always felt better under a blanket (or four) — he wasn’t fond of cold in the slightest.

Predictably enough, Mairon instantly relaxed, burrowing even closer to Melkor, curling into the heat and wrapping the blanket tighter around himself. Work all but forgotten, Melkor allowed himself to rest his chin on Mairon’s forehead, pulling the other close, and closed his eyes for the briefest of seconds. He was content with merely laying there, making sure Mairon got enough rest as to not be crabby for the remainder of the day. He himself functioned on meager hours of sleep a night, and didn't require the same copious hours of shuteye.

As such, he was genuinely surprised to find he'd fallen asleep for a few hours despite his espresso binge, only to be roused by a much more lively Mairon holding two cups of coffee and announcing it was noon, and about damn time for Melkor to get his lazy ass to work.


	3. Beginnings Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which everything is almost the same, except Arda is a small suburban town in the middle of nowhere and everyone's favorite dark lords are that weird, annoying couple that live in the old, haunted looking house down the road.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> first meetings, ahoy
> 
> here we have melkor dropping by valinor to resolve some business with his brother & laying his eyes upon the hottest piece of ass he's seen in quite some time, thank you  
> aka. the seduction of mairon, the only (tiny) difference being the fact that it takes place not in a forge, but an office building
> 
> _timeline: literally their first meeting_

The first thing that Mairon noticed when he stepped out of the lobby elevator at the far end of the hall was the slightly quivering secretary at the front desk, which immediately confirmed his suspicions that the tall, dark haired stranger leaning against the desk was Manwë’s esteemed guest of honor. _Esteemed_ here meaning Manwë had no choice but to finally resolve some dire matter with his brother and begrudgingly arranged a meeting.

And though Mairon could understand the secretary's trepidation in terms of the man's inherently intimidating stature, there were a few stray thoughts flying through Mairon’s mind about how unsettlingly attractive this guy was. The idea made Mairon want to rethink his life choices, but also added a bit of dramatic flair to the boring hours ticking away inside the concrete walls of the building, so it couldn't hurt to indulge a fantasy or two. 

The man caught sight of Mairon approaching and smirked in that annoyingly patronizing way one would smirk when they thought they were the king of the world. And while this guy seemed to radiate this feeling of superiority, he was similar enough to Manwë that the aristocratic features didn't set Mairon on edge. He could handle this, he figured. 

He figured wrong. Mairon didn’t even have the chance to open his mouth before the man spoke.

“Is my little brother too high and mighty to come down and greet me himself?” he drawled, voice deep and amused. It sounded more like a statement of fact than a question and Mairon was momentarily taken aback. It wasn't that he hadn't expected trouble — of course he had, what with Manwë’s countless sob stories of how damn annoying his brother was (and the four chamomile teas Manwë had already had that morning) — it simply boiled down to the fact that Mairon hadn't quite expected  _this._

“He has other matters to attend to before your meeting,” Mairon replied, tone relatively cold, in no mood to engage in games with someone he’d practically been programmed to hate. And it helped to distance himself from the sudden heat spreading throughout his body; had the circumstances been different, had this been a random stranger in a dodgy bar, Mairon would have been on his knees already.

He swallowed and blinked numbly, appalled at his train of thought. Manwë had said plenty, but failed to mention those ice blue eyes.

“So, he sends his little worker bees to take care of whatever’s below him.”

Again, not a question. The secretary was looking between the two of them now, evidently still overwhelmed by whatever conversation he held with the man minutes before Mairon's arrival. Mairon didn’t blame him, not at all — he himself just wasn’t one to give into an intimidating glare.

He inhaled sharply and absently straightened his blazer with one hand. It was a habit he just couldn’t seem to break, no matter how desperately he claimed not to have any nervous tells. But perfection called, and Mairon instinctively fixed creases that weren't really there.

“I’m here to bring you upstairs,” Mairon told him. “Make of that what you will.”

A slight hint of surprise flickered over the man’s face at Mairon’s words and, one raised eyebrow later, it was plain as day that he wasn’t used to anyone talking back to him like that — or at all. He probably expected the world to fall to its knees before him. And Mairon was thankful his own iron resolve prevented him from doing just that.

The secretary looked like he was on the verge of calling security and having them both escorted out of the building, in fear for his own safety, and probably everybody else’s. 

Mairon didn’t wait around to find out, instead turning on his heel and heading right back to the elevator he’d emerged from. Within a few moments he sensed he was being followed. Begrudgingly, because the tall, dark stranger was obviously irritated at being bested at his (mediocre, at best) intimidation game.  

Mairon held the elevator door open long enough for him to step inside and lean against the opposite wall.

Just when Mairon thought the short trip up would be quiet and painless, the guy decided to speak up again, having spent the last few seconds staring at Mairon with a worrying intensity. If the gaze had truly been as cold as it looked, Mairon would have been frozen solid before they even reached the second floor.

“You do this often?” he asked. “Fetch people for Manwë? Play the tour guide? You hardly seem like the type to be an errand boy,” he added, a hint of something else entirely in his voice, something that Mairon couldn’t quite interpret and couldn’t quite decide if he liked. If the irrational infatuation was mutual, that spelled far more trouble than if it'd been unrequited.

“Flattery will get you nowhere.”

There was a surprised scoff. “Flattery? No, I was — ”

There was a soft ding as the doors clicked and smoothly slid open. Mairon immediately stepped out, leaving the man’s words dangling in the air, unheard. Mairon knew he was pissing the guy off. He liked that idea, he decided. 

The corridor wasn’t too long, yet Manwë’s office was at the very end, and Mairon walked fast, not quite wanting to find out what else the man had to say.

He managed to stay ahead until he reached the double doors. He stopped and glanced down at his watch, dismayed at his time of arrival. Manwë wasn’t expecting them for another minute or two, and Mairon was nothing if not punctual. He wasn't about to knock on the door in a pathetic display of desperation, though the idea of putting a wall behind himself and the attractive stranger was enthralling. 

He watched the man approach him and stop not two feet away, ignorant of the concept of personal space and Mairon’s exceptional love of said concept.

“It’s impolite to leave someone hanging like that,” the man huffed, sounding a bit too much like a spoiled child stomping their foot at the slightest discomfort.

“I’ve got a schedule to keep,” Mairon said curtly.

“And yet it appears you did have a minute to spare.”

Mairon stayed silent, matching the man’s amused stare. He wasn’t going to admit defeat, and he was entirely unwilling to give anyone the satisfaction of being right — especially not this smug son of a bitch. It was out of the question to be deemed inferior by someone he'd just met. 

There was a moment of quiet.

“I’m Melkor,” the man finally said, sounding very much like he expected confetti and a parade in his honor.

Mairon resisted the incredibly strong urge to roll his eyes. “I’m well aware of who you are.”

Melkor frowned. “Am I not going to get a name in return?”

Mairon opened his mouth to respond, then closed it and flinched ever so slightly as the doors behind him suddenly (finally,  _blessedly_ ) swung open. Manwë looked murderous. Melkor was still staring at Mairon, awaiting a response, and it was becoming increasingly unnerving.

Manwë shifted his expectant gaze to Mairon, following Melkor's line of sight. Mairon set his jaw, two intense pairs of eyes trained on him now.

“I doubt it’ll be relevant,” he said shortly, and Melkor’s face fell — it was barely noticeable but Mairon managed to pick up on the shift in his expression, which vanished just as soon as it'd appeared.

He excused himself almost immediately, leaving the brothers to sort out their dispute, and sped back down the hallway to keep himself from looking back. It was unsettling, he later noted to himself, how much he wished he had.


	4. Curiosity Killed The Cat(s)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which everything is almost the same, except Arda is a small suburban town in the middle of nowhere and everyone's favorite dark lords are that weird, annoying couple that live in the old, haunted looking house down the road.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not much angbanging in this one. none, actually
> 
> in this one we relocate to the town's coziest, most popular getaway, bilbo's _hobbit hole_ bookstore/café. fili and kili are little shits, also thorin has a big, embarassing crush on bilbo
> 
>    
>  _timeline: around 2 years after first meeting_

Seeing Mairon sitting at a lone table by the window overlooking the street, obviously preoccupied with something on his phone screen, was a clear signal to everyone in the nearest vicinity to keep a safe distance and leave him the fuck alone. On more than one occasion, bugging a busy Mairon had ended in threat of dismemberment, and most everyone had the self preservation to stay away.

As it turned out, _not_ everyone.

There was a scrape of chairs and by the time Mairon looked up from his phone, he found himself facing the older of the Oakenshield brothers, the smaller one plastered to his brother's side. Mairon took another bite of his sandwich and stared at the kid with utter disinterest.

“Can we ask you a question?” Fili asked innocuously, leaning forward ever so slightly. Kili shifted eagerly beside his brother.

“No,” Mairon said, tone dismissive, mouth full, not in the mood to be setting a good example for the youth of Arda. Honestly, he'd have thought that these two had learned not to speak to him under threat of death, or worse. But if they were anything like their uncle, their curiosity and sheer force of will would be their doom.

Fili wasn’t disheartened in the slightest when he sat up straighter and started, “Ok, so — ”

Mairon resisted the urge to roll his eyes. He shot a hopeful look over one of the boys’ shoulders and thanked his lucky stars when he saw that the Alpha Oakenshit happened to be sitting at the other end of the café, his book laying untouched on the table beside his coffee, as he chatted with the owner in a manner that could only be described as openly and _desperately_ flirtatious. Bilbo didn’t seem to notice.

Kili’s patience reached its evident limit and he blurted, “ — is that a wedding ring?”, motioning excitedly to the gold band on Mairon's finger. 

Fili elbowed his brother in the ribs in that loving way one shoved their sibling when they _didn't stick to the fucking game plan._

Mairon finished the last of his sandwich, never once dropping his gaze from the boys’ expectant eyes, before leaning over the edge of his table and shouting across the room.

“ _Oakenshield_ , your nephews are trying to buy drugs from me.”

There was an outraged squawk from Kili as he and Fili tripped over their own feet, trying to scramble away from the table.

In a matter of seconds, Thorin was already halfway to Mairon’s location (Bilbo despairingly dropping his head into his hands in the distance), seething and nearly emitting steam in his hateful rage. The brothers barely made it three steps when Thorin grabbed each one by the ear and, ignoring their yelps of protest and pain, proceeded to bodily drag them out of the café.

Mairon decided to explain, in his best innocent bystander voice, like the annoying shit he was. “Just thought you should know — they’re both underage and I thought it best to seek some parental permission first, and you were the next best thing, sitting right there. I didn't sell any, don't worry. Unless you want some for yourself, I'm sure we can arrange a trade — ”

Thorin shot him a death glare and pushed the doors open, shoving his nephews onto the sidewalk outside before stepping out himself.

“I’ll take that as a no, then,” Mairon called after him.

While the stunt was all in the name of good fun, by the end of the week Mairon was forced to explain to four different people, (including Gandalf — the town's weed equivalent of a sommelier) that he did not actually sell drugs. Gandalf looked crushed at the revelation and was gone the next morning, likely scouring the next town over for a fix.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> point is, the one ring is a wedding ring and no one can convince me otherwise


	5. Below Zero

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which everything is almost the same, except Arda is a small suburban town in the middle of nowhere and everyone's favorite dark lords are that weird, annoying couple that live in the old, haunted looking house down the road.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mairon gets cold easily, that nerd
> 
> _timeline: around 2 years after first meeting_

“Have you been outside?” Melkor asked the moment Mairon stepped into their bedroom, shivering violently and rubbing his oversized hoodie clad hands together.

Mairon looked up and quickly shot back a defensive, “No,” which was a filthy lie, if his reddened cheeks and blue lips were anything to go by.

“Why’d you go outside?”

“I didn’t.” Mairon snapped and stopped where he was, rooted to the spot. He hovered near the door, wistfully glancing at the fireplace not five steps away, but he knew very well that any attempt approaching it would _a)_ confirm Melkor’s suspicions, and _b)_ give Melkor full access to come up near enough to feel the icy air practically radiating off Mairon’s skin.

Melkor shot him a doubtful look. “Of course you went outside, you’re a snowman.”

When Mairon made no move to inch any closer to the fireplace, or the bed, or anywhere that was warmer than the drafty doorway, Melkor pushed himself up from where he’d been lounging against the pillows with some files, working (a term also meaning _pretending to work_ ), and swung himself over the side of the bed to walk over to Mairon.

Mairon made a failed attempt at shoving the ends of his sweater sleeves into his pockets before Melkor took his shaking hands into his own and held them up for inspection.

He hummed thoughtfully, tilting his head to better observe the situation. “Based upon my prior experience with stubborn icicles, I have to estimate this is some severe third degree frostbite caused by an exposure period of roughly twenty five to thirty minutes — sadly, I have no choice but to recommend an amputation procedure — there’s no saving these fingers.”

He glanced down from the shivering digits to Mairon’s scowling face and held his stare for a few seconds before Mairon snatched his hands back and walked past him towards the fireplace, wrapping his arms around himself to retain heat.

Melkor sighed and followed suit, looming over him as Mairon positioned himself squarely in front of the mantel, close enough to really feel the warmth, not quite close enough to burn his hands off.

“There’s a blizzard, Mairon. It’s on the news, it’s on the radio, it’s — _right there_ , out the window, it’s so bad you can’t see four feet in front of you. And _you_ , specifically, shouldn’t be leaving the house when it’s below freezing, let alone during a freak storm.”

“I just left my phone in the car, Melkor, I wasn’t out there making snow angels for hours,” Mairon snapped impatiently. He was cold and therefore irritable and Melkor was nothing if not irritating. A clash of personalities, if there ever was one.

There was a moment of silence. It stretched long enough for Mairon to wonder if maybe Melkor hadn’t even heard him in the first place.

Then, tone utterly disbelieving, Melkor asked. “What did you say?”

“I said I left my phone in the car,” Mairon repeated. “Can you let it go?”

Disregarding the perfect opening to make a _Frozen_ pun, Melkor let out a bark of laughter and Mairon twisted his head around enough to raise an eyebrow at him in question.

“God, I was wondering where you could’ve wandered off to for long enough to freeze your ass off like that and you’re telling me you just went out to the driveway? Fifteen paces from the front door? You look like you’ve unsuccessfully attempted to climb Mount Everest and — ” he trailed off, “ — no, that just won’t do.”

Mairon let out an undignified squawk as Melkor wrapped his arms around him from behind and began dragging him backwards onto the bed.

“ _What the hell are you —_?” he managed, just before he was bodily maneuvered onto the mattress and ended up with a facefull of bedsheets that impeded what he was going to say next.

Melkor took his time to lean back against the pillows once more, this time pulling Mairon against him and settling him between his legs. He reached over towards the fleece blanket at the foot of the bed and pulled it up around Mairon, bundling him up much like a human tortilla. It took a few moments, but eventually Mairon’s tense form relaxed ever so slightly and he leaned back against Melkor, desperate for any warmth he could soak up.

“I could’ve gone to get it for you, you know,” Melkor finally said, locking his arms around Mairon’s waist to stop his incessant shivering, “you didn’t have to brave the cruel, cold plains of the tundra on your own little feet.”

Mairon grumbled something under his breath.

“I’m surprised the wind didn’t blow you away entirely. I mean, you weigh less than the dog. I would've thought if someone of your stature left during a storm like this they'd find them blown two towns over, buried under a dune of snow. Did you even wear a coat? You’re shaking like a chihuahua.”

“Are you done now?” Mairon demanded, in that exasperated tone of his that he only reserved for instances where Melkor made fun of his height. It was harmless and funny at times but, dear _lord_ , how many times could he joke about Mairon’s feet barely reaching the gas pedals in his old Jeep before it got old?

“I’m genuinely terrified that you’re going to freeze to death in my arms.”

“I was doing just fine by the fireplace.”

Melkor shut up. His grip around Mairon’s waist somewhat tightened, in a subconscious attempt to keep him from running away.

He managed to sit in silence for no more than two minutes before speaking up again.

“You know, I’ve heard this body heat thing works better when you’re not wearing any clothes.”

Mairon’s tired sigh was to be expected.

“Look, if you want my icicle hands wrapped around your dick then be my guest, but we’ll see which one of us is complaining about the frostbite then.”


	6. Beginnings Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which everything is almost the same, except Arda is a small suburban town in the middle of nowhere and everyone's favorite dark lords are that weird, annoying couple that live in the old, haunted looking house down the road.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well [joannabelle](http://archiveofourown.org/users/joannabelle/pseuds/joannabelle) mentioned melkor harassing mairon into joining the dark side of corporate sabotage so
> 
> tis a lil sequel to their [first meeting in chapter 3](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4641381/chapters/10760810)
> 
> _timeline: around 2 months after first meeting_

The second time Melkor showed up at Valinor was even more of a disaster. Well, not really, not in the traditional sense. Maybe just in Mairon’s eyes.

It began with the seemingly insignificant fact that this time, Mairon hadn’t been warned of Melkor’s appointment with his brother. Sure, there had been talk of a dire legal board meeting later that afternoon, but not once did it occur to Mairon that tall, dark and irksome would make a guest appearance.

And yet, there he was, all smug and nonchalant, sitting at Manwë’s left: simultaneously looking like he’d rather be anywhere but here _and_ like he owned the entire damn company — not at all like he was about to get his ass sued for an unholy amount of money, and by his perfect do-gooder brother no less.

The most vexing part of it all, Mairon had to admit, was that despite the serious allegations Melkor was facing, he seemed to be listening to approximately nothing the lawyers were prattling on about, instead (not so) subtly keeping an eye on the farthest end of the table, where the lower ranking employees had been prompted to sit, and among them Mairon.

The first time he noticed it, the _ogling_ , Manwë was reading off accusations from a long and certainly meticulously detailed list — Mairon had glanced up from his own notes for a split second and immediately noticed someone’s eyes on him, if the unexplainable chill than ran down his spine was anything to go by. Surely enough, Melkor’s eyes were fixed solely on him from across the table, with such a burning intensity that Mairon had no choice but to look away, focusing on the papers before him.

The second time, Mairon had been asked to bring a document over to where Manwë was sitting and, as expected, Melkor’s prying eyes followed his path around the table. If Mairon were to be painfully precise, he’d have to admit he noticed Melkor was staring at his ass, more so than the rest of him. Understandable — Mairon had a great ass, but any dimwit seated at the table could have noticed Melkor’s obvious leering. And yet, no one did.

The third time around, it seemed like a challenge. Mairon mentally squared himself and openly met Melkor’s stare, which was by now outright flirtatious, if not unseemly lascivious. Refusing to back down, Mairon held his gaze and watched with increasing morbid fascination as Melkor’s smirk grew in strength and size. And while Melkor’s mind may have been straying into unprofessional territories, Mairon was more preoccupied with wondering how, in the name of all that was holy, not one soul gathered around the table had noticed Melkor’s behavior. Not even Manwë himself, whom Mairon had always held in high regard for his incredible intellectual capacity.

All things considered, the meeting was dull.

Which was how Mairon later rationalized the irrational thoughts that had insidiously crept up on him as yet another board member began his speech about work ethics.

The thoughts weren’t exactly _irrational_ , to be honest. Anyone with decent enough eyesight and an appreciation for all things aesthetically pleasing could admit that Melkor had a nice enough face, that his eyes were an uncanny shade of blue (sure, Manwë’s were a similar color but there was something about the contrast with Melkor’s pitch black hair that did the trick), but more importantly, though, that his lips were —

Mairon sat up straighter.

Melkor knew he was watching. The smirk was near comical in size now.

“I’m sorry, are you finding something amusing?”

Melkor’s expression hardened instantly at the question directed at him. He turned his head to face the lawyer who’d spoken and replied, tone dripping with false sincerity, “Of course not, do carry on.”

Mairon took the opportunity to drop his gaze right back onto his notes and pretend, for all it was worth, that he had not just been the object of Melkor’s diverted attention.

He didn’t look up again, not until some conclusion was achieved and those present began gathering their paperwork, preparing to leave the room.

Strategically, Mairon figured, it was safest to stay inside until everybody left, Melkor included, to avoid any sort of uncomfortable interaction. And stay he did, under the pretext of looking over some documents, unwilling to even give Melkor the satisfaction of watching him depart.

 

And everything seemed jolly and dandy, up until thirty minutes later, when Mairon allowed himself a much earned break from his work and found himself walking to the employee lounge around the corner.

He pulled the door open and, as luck would have it, found it occupied.

“What are you doing here?” he snapped, less politely than he ought to have, probably.

Melkor reclined back into the plastic chair he was seated in and lifted his paper cup in explanation.

“There’s a buffet for visitors downstairs,” Mairon said, turning his back to make himself a very strong, overly sweetened coffee to make up for all the hardships he had to suffer. “In case you can’t read, I’ll have you know the sign on this particular door reads _employees only_.”

Melkor scoffed — he even managed to make humor sound condescending. He was silent for a moment, then, “I’m a by proxy employee. I dare think a first degree blood relation with the CEO, however unfortunate, allows me to get a cup of coffee wherever I please.”

“I’m sure Manwë would be thrilled to hear that.”

Melkor looked affronted by the very fact that anyone would even have the gall to speak his brother’s name in his presence.

Mairon pressed the brew button with more force than logically necessary and the sputtering of the coffee machine was the only sound in the room for what felt like eons.

Mairon reached towards the condiments stand and grabbed enough sugar packets to feed a small nation for a week, then did the same with the creamer. It was routine for him — dump enough stuff into his coffee until it no longer tasted like coffee.

The silence was unnerving. Every sugar packet he ripped open resounded ten times louder than it normally did and Mairon just couldn’t shake the feeling that Melkor was staring at his ass again. In the end, he simply lost his patience —

“I’m sorry, is there something you need?” he snapped, hurriedly turning around to face Melkor, who, to Mairon’s shock, was no longer seated across the room, but standing not two steps from him — no sense of personal space _whatsoever_.

Mairon attempted to take an involuntary step back in surprise, but was dismayed to find it impossible. The counter dug into the small of his back, leaving him trapped between the coffee machine and Melkor’s intimidating stature — the guy was a head taller than Mairon, if not more so, and watching him closely with that damn smirk gracing his features again.

Mairon didn’t like it, because he liked it.

He blindly reached behind his back to grasp his cup, ready to make a swift escape out of the room, towards literally anywhere else.

“I have to go,” he muttered.

Melkor slowly cocked his head to the side. “You in a hurry?”

“I have another meeting to get to,” Mairon replied automatically, then took a second to consider why the hell he suddenly felt the need to explain himself to a complete stranger.

There was a huff and the smirk morphed into a grin. “ _Come on_ , Mairon, sit down and unwind for a while. Your office is just down the hall, you can’t run _too_ late if you take a minute.”

Mairon stared at him blankly, then blinked and stared some more. Choosing not to question the blatant fact that Melkor had somehow (unsurprisingly) managed to learn his name and the _exact_ location of his desk, he settled for, “Oh, so you’re stalking me now.”

At least Melkor had the decency to look vaguely ashamed. Either that or insulted at being figured out so fast. It was hopeless to try and tell which.

Mairon frowned. “Look, I don’t know what your — ”

“Go out with me.”

A moment passed. The punchline didn't come. 

Mairon gaped. “What?”

“What what? You heard me.”

“You know what, I’m not so sure I did.”

Melkor sighed in obvious annoyance. “Oh, what are you so afraid of? A drink or two never killed anyone, as far as I know.”

Mairon was at a loss for words, which was a rare enough occurrence in itself. Blandly, he settled for, “It’s not appropriate.”

Which was clearly the wrong thing to say, as it lit up some disconcerting spark in Melkor’s eyes. “So, you’re saying you’re not up for it because it’s unbefitting — ”

It was a statement, rather than a question, and Mairon did nothing more than subconsciously tighten his grip around his paper cup.

“ — you’re saying that, if the circumstances were different, your decision would be different as well?”

Mairon stayed deathly quiet as Melkor took a single step forward, successfully closing the gap between them and very nearly pinning him to the counter at his back. Mairon’s breath hitched in his throat and he couldn’t quite tell if it was the alarming proximity or the raw intimacy of the situation that had him on edge.

He leaned in close enough that for anyone who would have happened to walk in at that very moment, the scene before them would have appeared quite ambiguous.

“Just keep in mind,” Melkor went on, tone barely audible, “that what Manwë doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”

And with that he pulled away, all but grinning in that disgustingly sly way of his (it was painfully attractive, Mairon couldn’t lie) and turned on his heel, dropping his paper cup into the nearby trash bin as he headed for the door without another word, not even bothering to wait for a reply. The self assuredness was not only irritating, but irritatingly attractive as well, and Mairon wanted to hit something — preferably Melkor's mouth. With his own.

The door clicked shut and Mairon allowed himself a deep, lengthy exhale, shoulders sagging with relief or whatever the hell he was feeling. Melkor had left and so the problem was gone and yet, when he went to take a sip of his coffee, he noticed his palms were sweaty, and the accompanying feeling of nausea wasn’t so much from the tension as the exhilaration — the realization was possibly more nauseating than the emotion itself.

 

It wasn’t until hours later, seated across from Manwë at his desk, going over some last minute reports before they called it a day, that Mairon found the slip of paper in the front pocket of his blazer. A slip of paper on which the hastily scribbled numbers eerily resembled a phone number.

Mairon froze and near frantically looked up. Manwë was typing away at his keyboard, eyes glued to the screen of the laptop, completely oblivious to Mairon’s discovery.

So, he didn’t know.

And what Manwë didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.


	7. Take A Break

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which everything is almost the same, except Arda is a small suburban town in the middle of nowhere and everyone's favorite dark lords are that weird, annoying couple that live in the old, haunted looking house down the road.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) there's no plot  
> 2) [this image](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/COiGat4WIAAwWlS.jpg) is more or less the plot  
> 3) but there's no summarizable plot
> 
> _timeline: around 1 year after first meeting_

As per usual, when Melkor had come downstairs to nag at Mairon to finish working for the night and instead come upstairs with him to relax, he was met with the classic reaction combination of an eye roll and unamused snort, because _come upstairs and relax_ was more or less Melkor Speak for the ulterior meaning of _Netflix and chill_.

And though Mairon had brushed him off, rather brusquely at that, Melkor was no quitter, and knew how to play at this game well enough — knew the right thing to say, the right time to brush his fingertips over exactly the right place — until his opponent gave in.

Though that foolproof method tended not to work so well on the occasions where Mairon was a tad bit more agitated than usual, hostility near palpable as he told Melkor to ever so kindly _fuck off, he had work to do, please and thank you._

Melkor took a step back from the couch, where Mairon was lounging with his billions of documents and laptop on the side, and gave him a strangely worried look that Mairon would have described as grossly patronizing and highly irritating.

“And what’s biting you today?”

“Nothing,” Mairon replied quickly, curtly, “I have stuff to finish and would dearly appreciate it if you could keep it in your pants for a few more hours to let me do so.”

Melkor raised an eyebrow. “No, seriously, what’s wrong?”

— because Mairon sounded very much like he’d raze a small town to the ground given the chance, if the pent up tension in his voice were anything to go by.

There was no reply, instead some truly furious keyboard slamming followed by a particularly violent press of the enter key.

Melkor huffed in annoyance and took a seat beside Mairon, careful not to crinkle any of the papers strewn about — doing so would have ignited the tantrum of the century, no doubt (Mairon probably ironed his documents thoroughly, though Melkor had no solid proof of that just yet).

“Whatever your laptop did to earn this abuse I’m sure was horrible, but set that aside for a second and tell me what’s wrong.”

Mairon pointedly ignored the plea, furrowing his brows to make it look like he was concentrating on his work rather than Melkor’s words. It was a convincing act, sure, but not for someone who’d seen it in action too many times before.

“You’re going to explode if you keep it bottled up,” Melkor pressed on. “When you keep things like this to yourself for hours on end, the smallest stuff sets you off and it is not pretty to watch. Not pretty to experience either, I’ll bet. Like Mentos in a coke bottle. You think the Mentos feel good about exploding? No. You know this and I know this, and I also know you are not reading right now so why don’t you put that away and tell me what’s on your mind.”

Mairon sighed dejectedly but didn’t set down the paperwork.

“I’m fine, really, take my word for it and _shoo_ , please.”

“Really?” Melkor asked, equally pointedly ignoring Mairon’s demand. “Listen, the last time you said you were fine, I got a call from Thuringwethil half past twelve, telling me to pick you up because you’d truly out-complained yourself and passed out on her couch.”

Mairon did drop the papers onto his lap then, turning to level Melkor with a cross glare. “She drugged me.”

“She gave you tea.”

“There was something in that tea,” Mairon continued defensively.

“Yes,” Melkor assured him, “chamomile. Because you’d thrown the hissy fit of the decade and had to be stopped.”

Mairon remained quiet, but eyed Melkor warily, as if he too was waiting for the most opportune moment to whip out a fresh brew of therapeutic tea.

Melkor took the silence as a sign of Mairon’s compliance and allowed himself to repeat the initial question. “So, is there anything you need to vent about? Manwë’s annoying new secretary? Someone cut you off on the highway again? Fëanor being an even bigger bitch than usual? Wait, no, I got it — Starbucks got your name wrong — ”

“It’s really nothing,” Mairon insisted, though some tension had seeped from his tone, as if Melkor listing all the things that potentially could have gone wrong with his day, he realized that whatever had really happened wasn’t that big of a deal after all.

Melkor abruptly stood and walked around the couch, much to Mairon’s confusion (giving up would be a disgrace, a failure to live up to Melkor’s title of Most Stubborn Human Alive) and unexpectedly snatched the laptop that was lying beside Mairon, unguarded. He deposited it on the dining room table a few steps away and returned to stand in front of Mairon, arms crossed.

He motioned at the mess of paperwork and said, “Clean those up and put them away.”

Mairon raised a dubious eyebrow.

“At this point, I have no choice but to cuddle the hell out of you, until you either tire yourself out struggling to get free and fall asleep or give into my diabolical plan and tell me what’s bugging you,” Melkor explained, tone stern as if he were relaying serious, factual information. “Please do hurry, I would hate to ruin your meticulous collection of worryingly un-creased files.”

In a matter of seconds, Mairon’s expression shifted from annoyed, to doubtful, to full on panic stricken, having historical proof that however jocular Melkor’s threats sounded at the time, he always made good on them — something Mairon had learned the hard way.

There was a frantic ten seconds during which Mairon gathered all his work up and set it down on the nearby coffee table, all at a speed which should not have been humanly possible. It deeply upset Melkor, as it seemed Mairon was more eager to uphold the pedantic state of his workspace than, perhaps, take his clothes off and get down to a different kind of business altogether.

Not all was lost, Melkor figured hopefully — he could easily enough get some after literally, bodily squeezing the answers out of Mairon’s iron grip.

And so he promptly did, crashing down onto the edge of the sofa, half reclining against the cushiony armrest, patting the space beside him to let Mairon know exactly where he wanted him. And either he was exceptionally irresistible, or Mairon had just been looking for the first best excuse to get his mind off things from the very beginning.

Putting up the obviously false façade of a grimace, Mairon pliantly crawled up the length of the couch and nestled into Melkor’s waiting embrace, grateful for the distraction and comforting warmth (not that he’d ever admit to it, not in a million years). Melkor wrapped his free arm around Mairon’s waist and pulled him closer, resting his chin atop Mairon’s head, relishing in just how much he resembled a warm, slightly oversized teddy bear. Or a squid, because he most certainly clung on like one. Regardless, it was unwinding and blessedly calming: the utter tranquility that overtook any other feeling or thought.

In the end, despite his best endeavors, Melkor never managed to figure out what exactly had been irking Mairon all afternoon, on account of the latter falling asleep in a matter of minutes, content and nuzzling into the fabric of Melkor’s sweater. Eventually, Melkor had drifted off himself, a remarkable feat in and of itself, taking into consideration his plaguing insomnia — he had to admit, there was something about listening to Mairon’s breaths even out that lulled him into trancelike enough state for his mind to finally shut down, for which he was immeasurably grateful.

Regrettably, the next morning was chock full of agonized groans of pain and cracking bones, because two grown men sleeping crammed onto an average sized couch for hours on end could only end in tragedy, honestly, _what were they thinking_.

 

 


	8. And Your Enemies Closer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which everything is almost the same, except Arda is a small suburban town in the middle of nowhere and everyone's favorite dark lords are that weird, annoying couple that live in the old, haunted looking house down the road.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> maedhros' tale of woe. 'nuff said
> 
> in other words, maedhros was in need of extra cash money and got himself hired as melkor & mairon's lawn mowing guy (because clearly being a cashier at the local supermarket was too mainstream for him)  
> and alas fëanor decided to use this opportunity to coerce his son into doing some snoopin' on his enemy  
> how could anything possibly go wrong???
> 
> _timeline: around 3-4 years after first meeting_

If anyone were to ask, Maedhros was most certainly _not_ conspicuously rummaging through one of the drawers in the bedroom when a creaking floorboard from the general direction of the hallway froze him in his tracks, constricting the flow of air into his lungs. His typical fight or flight reaction was replaced by cold, foreboding fear that maybe the noise hadn’t been the effect of heavy winds and an old house, but Mairon silently returning from his quick run to the store down the street.

He sat in place, crouched and unmoving, refusing to breathe, waiting for another sound. Maedhros could admit with a clear conscience, without an ounce of melodramatics, that it was like waiting for the guillotine to drop. One part of him was rationalizing the situation ( _Windy day. Old house. Floorboards creak all the time, what am I, stupid?_ ) while the other was churning out worst case scenarios ( _Maybe I should text Fingon real quick, say goodbye — just in case_ ).

In the end, the logical side won over. Maedhros was a rational human being. It was the wind. Just a casual, one time creepy sound that houses tended to make every once in a while — nothing to fear.

He resumed shuffling through the papers he’d stopped on, scanning each page for something his father had called _I don’t know, anything incriminating, embarrassing — just get me something I can work with._ Though, admittedly, Maedhros had no idea what that entailed. As of the moment he’d found some college diplomas, a marriage certificate and an incarceration record, but he doubted he’d manage to smuggle any of them out of the house without his employers’ awareness.

Regardless, the prospect of finally making his father proud was so enticing that Maedhros once more lost himself in his mediocre spy work, creepy creaky hallway all but forgotten.

Which was why he jumped a good twenty feet in the air when he heard the voice.

“The grass is outside, Maedhros,” Mairon drawled, sounding more bored than anything.

Maedhros’ head snapped up, eyes blown wide in panic. Mairon was leaning against the doorframe, watching him with no more interest than one would watch their plants grow, and yet there was an underlying malicious glee just barely visible below the surface.

And though Maedhros could attempt to get by with talk like _this isn’t what it looks like,_ he was quite literally holding the evidence of his crime in his hand, leaving his fingerprints all over it, in case anyone needed to prove it in a court of law.

“I wasn’t aware that your responsibilities had been upgraded from mowing the lawn, which, may I remind you, is outside,” Mairon went on, “to house maid. Did Melkor ask you to scan through the personal paperwork in my private study? I'll have to have a chat with him about that.”

“This isn’t what it looks like,” Maedhros said, dumbly, stupidly —  _good lord_ , he was stupid, but his mind had drawn a blank.

Mairon’s expression remained eerily impassive. “Why don’t we set those down and come downstairs, hm? I’ll get some tea started — coffee, if you prefer. We’ll wait for your judgment like civilized folk. I'd deal with you myself but I'd prefer to get a second opinion — wouldn't want to do anything irrational.”

With his newfound (snooped out) knowledge that Melkor had been convicted in his youth, however trivial the accusations, the mention of his impending arrival chilled the very blood in Maedhros’ veins.

On the upside, he managed to regain his speech. “I’m touched, really. But I should get going,” he stammered in a tone that he thought was, but in fact wasn’t, convincing. “I finished the lawn. Front and back. So, I’ll be on my way — please.”

Mairon scoffed. “Don’t get your fake dyed red hair in a twist, kid,” he said, and Maedhros bristled, because his hair color was completely natural and Mairon was just jealous his own wasn't as amazing. “You want to get paid, don’t you? Melkor should be back in,” he glanced at his phone, “half an hour, and you’ll get what you earned and be on your merry way.”

Maedhros rationalized that he was plenty taller than Mairon and could easily enough push past him and sprint down the stairs to make a break for it — but there was something in Mairon’s voice, a thinly veiled threat, to let Maedhros know that running would be futile, that they would find him anywhere, no matter what.

 

/

 

Maedhros was seated on the living room couch, cup of tea in hand, trying his best not to tremble violently in anticipation of Melkor’s arrival. In short, he didn’t put it past these guys to lock him in their basement and torture him for all eternity. He prayed someone knew where he was in case he actually, literally needed rescuing. Well, someone other than his father, on whom he couldn’t count on if his life depended on it — like it potentially did, at this very moment.

The second the front door slammed open, Maedhros could’ve sworn the temperature in the room dropped a few degrees. Melkor looked him dead in the eye and Maedhros shivered violently. There was an amused snort from where Mairon was sitting, perched on top of the kitchen counter with his own mug — maybe he hated chairs with a passion, maybe he merely wanted to feel tall.

“I hate to play the villain,” Melkor announced, only to be met with silence, because that was a lie, “but it looks like you give me no other option, sneaking around my house like a half assed Nancy Drew.”

Evidently, he’d been thoroughly briefed on the situation, which made a whole lot of sense looking back on Mairon’s incessant texting during the last half hour.

Maedhros considered asking for a pen and paper to jot down his last will and testament before he was hacked into small pieces and buried in various places all over the country.

There was a pause. “On my drive here I was seriously considering dangling this kid from the roof for good measure and here you make him tea,” Melkor said, this part directed at Mairon. “What kind of interrogator are you?”

Mairon slid down from the counter and dropped his mug in the sink. “He would’ve had an aneurysm if I’d chained him to the fence like you asked; or set the dog on him. I mean, is it not preferable to torture someone who still has _some_ sanity left?”

Maedhros couldn’t tell if he was joking. He looked between Mairon and Melkor, who seemed to be having a inaudible telepathic conversation, the shaking in his hands now aggressive enough to spill tea over the rim of his cup. He hastily deposited the dish onto one of the coasters on the coffee table in front of him with a clatter.

“More like good cop, bad cop,” Mairon finally went on. “Now if you’ll excuse me, good cop needs to go take a shower.”

“No, Mairon, if you leave who’s going to help me hold him down when I — ”

That was the final straw; Maedhros stood up, panicked. “It wasn’t me!” He trailed off and frowned. “I mean, technically it was, but it wasn’t my idea — what good would it do me to look through your things? It was all — "

“ — Fëanor,” Melkor interrupted. “Yes, that much is obvious. But he's not here right now and you’re the next best thing.”

Maedhros stiffened. “Hey, if you wanna get to him by murdering me or something, I can tell you right now it’s not going to work. He probably won’t even notice I’m gone.”

Mairon tilted his head as if to consider this newfound information. Melkor didn’t seem as convinced. “Right, but that’s some alternate universe where I give a shit about Fëanor and his opinion of me, which I don’t. I’m doing this purely for my own sadistic pleasure.”

Maedhros appeared to be on the verge of shitting his pants and Mairon looked like he was trying quite hard not to burst out laughing.

Taking a few steps forward, Melkor stalked past Maedhros (who tried to back away and ended up falling back into a sitting position on the couch) and took his place beside Mairon, who eyed him inquisitively. This was it, Maedhros realized: the moment they decided exactly how to off him. Of course, his gut instinct had been right, telling him to call Fingon and say his last goodbyes while he had the chance.

It was all too late now.

 

/

 

“He can always call the cops on you, you know.” Mairon broke the silence.

He and Melkor were seated on the back porch, eating the Chinese takeout that Melkor had gotten on his way home.

“I’d like to see him try.”

Mairon hummed in thought. “If you’d tied him up in the basement you’d at least have the guarantee that he won’t go telling on you.”

“I didn’t hurt him too bad,” came the predicable reply, “and it’s not like he’ll try and have me arrested if he wants to keep the job.”

Mairon turned to look at him in disbelief. “You really think he wants to keep this job after the shit you pulled?”

Melkor met his gaze.

“Oh, no, babe,” Mairon went on, getting to his feet to return inside, “you’re mowing your own damn lawn from now on.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> psa: maedhros still has both hands and is relatively unscathed  
> 


	9. Will You Do Me The Honor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which everything is almost the same, except Arda is a small suburban town in the middle of nowhere and everyone's favorite dark lords are that weird, annoying couple that live in the old, haunted looking house down the road.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> everyone was so excited about that marriage certificate this was wholly unexpected i mean c'mon ofc they're married they share hair ties and torture neighborhood kids together
> 
> so, without further ado, by (moderately) popular demand, the engagement (!?)
> 
> _timeline: around 1.5 years after first meeting_

For all intents and purposes, it happened with no prelude, as far as Mairon was concerned. Hours went by like any old day, entirely unremarkable in its normalcy. He’d gone to work, work had been utterly boring (as usual, Manwë was boring), he’d come back, microwaved some leftover pizza and crashed on the couch with some reality show playing on the television across the room.

Then, Melkor had come home, throwing his coat and keys across the coffee table (equally typical), and had casually stolen a slice from Mairon’s plate, before grabbing a can of soda from the fridge and taking a seat at the dining room table.

Nothing appeared to be out of the ordinary, aside from the subtle fact that Melkor, for some reason, had chosen to sit at the table, rather than beside Mairon on the sofa. Mairon didn’t pay it too much thought, however — none at all, really. Maybe if he’d bothered to unstick his eyes from the travesty taking place on the TV screen, he’d have noticed Melkor’s uncharacteristically suspicious twitching.

Well, his loss.

 

/

 

“ — it’s extensions,” Mairon argued, glaring pointedly at the screen.

“You seem awfully certain about that.”

“No one has hair like that,” came the retort, “no one on this planet has natural hair that looks like that.”

Melkor couldn’t believe this was a legitimate topic they were discussing. “So what if it’s fake?”

There was an outraged scoff. “You can’t win America’s Next Top Model with cheap extensions — hell, you shouldn’t even be allowed to enter looking like that. It’s unfair to people who actually put effort into managing their own hair.”

Evidently, this was personal, probably related to the hours Mairon spent deep conditioning on a weekly basis.

Melkor knew it was best to play along. As unnecessary as stroking Mairon’s ego was, his hair was a sensitive topic and he really didn’t appreciate being met with criticism.

“Well, hell, Mairon, we can’t all look as ethereal as you.”

Mairon stared at the screen in disappointment for a few more seconds, then, late reaction kicking in, he turned to Melkor and put on a (not so) convincing mask of false denial.

“I wasn’t talking about me.”

“No, of course not.”

The playful tone of mockery was palpable. So Mairon was a bit of a narcissist, sue him. It wasn’t as if Melkor didn’t spend any time perfecting his own appearance as well.

Mairon set down his plate and rearranged his sitting position to fully face Melkor. He had his serious face on.

“You’re making fun of me.” It was a statement that left little room for negotiation.

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Melkor said, trying very hard to sound overly sarcastic and succeeding.

Mairon huffed and started off on a defensive tirade that had the potential to span anywhere between four minutes and three days.

“I don’t know why you’re being so annoying about this. It’s a legitimate concern of mine, that that girl will be allowed to the next round despite that trashy weave while some other contestant with _real_ hair will pack her bags and go home, like, where’s the fairness in that? This show is a fucking jungle, I couldn’t agree more, but have some respect for authenticity, it’s all that — ”

“ — marry me.”

Mairon trailed off, words unsaid suddenly hanging heavy in the air. He had the uncanny suspicion that Melkor had just said what he thought he’d said, and yet a nagging voice in the back of his mind was trying to convince him that maybe he’d misheard, that he’d heard what he’d _wanted_ to hear instead.

Or, that this was a joke to Melkor, that he’d said it just to shut him up.

Intelligently, Mairon settled for an eloquent, whispered, “ _What?_ ”

Melkor was sitting impossibly still, staring at him with a burning intensity that could only be described as nervous anticipation.

“You heard me.”

“Did I?”

“I know you heard me, Mairon, you’re not fooling anyone.”

Having established that, yes, indeed, Mairon had heard right, there remained the question of exactly how serious Melkor was being.

Some loud commotion was taking place in the show onscreen, yet Mairon was oblivious to whatever was transpiring, instead staring at Melkor like he’d grown another head. Or like maybe the whole exchange just now had been some weird alternative reality daydream and Mairon had imagined the entire thing.

Melkor slumped into his chair in apparent defeat, then restlessly leaned forward again, this time holding up a thin gold band between his fingers, which Mairon could’ve sworn hadn't been there mere moments before.

Melkor cracked a smile, all seductive and encouraging in its authenticity. “C’mon, Mairon, marry me.”

Mairon’s heart dropped — not at all in the negative meaning of the expression — more so almost literally, he felt like it’d suddenly dropped to the floor because his chest could no longer contain it.

Minutes, maybe eons passed before he figured out how to use words again. “You’re serious,” he stated, or asked, or whatever his disbelieving tone implied.

“Does it look like I’m not?”

Mairon bit back a smile (and quite possibly an onslaught of tears, but grown men _do not_ cry at romantic clichés). “It looks like you are.”

Melkor raised his eyebrows like that had been the most obvious conclusion in existence, spreading his hands in an inviting gesture, hoping to finally coax an answer from a clearly deeply emotional Mairon.

“And?” he asked, sounding hopeful, but not too hopeful, not too desperate — having to maintain his air of calm, collected and eternally chill.

Mairon let out a very undignified snort of laughter, no longer able to contain whatever hysterical glee was bubbling up inside him.

“Fine,” he said, once he’d regained some sense of dignity; miserably failing at holding back a grin. “I will. If it’s so important to you,” he added, with an theatrical sigh.

Melkor rolled his eyes and pushed himself up off the seat. He crossed the distance to the sofa in a few long strides and dropped down beside Mairon, mirroring his undeniable smile.

“Is that a yes I hear?” he went on, reveling in watching Mairon’s attempts to suppress his reaction; wiggling the ring between his fingers for good measure — if Mairon wasn’t sold on the idea alone, he’d undoubtedly agree out of his penchant for small, sparkly objects.

Mairon huffed, and if it was a teary kind of watery that was his own business. “Of course it’s a yes.”

There was a very fake relieved sigh on Melkor’s part. “Oh, well, that’s good news. I was already worried about — ”

“ — oh, please shut up.”

Mairon wasted no time in getting his fingers in Melkor’s shirt and pulling him forward, drawing him into a deep kiss. The sudden movement sent Melkor toppling over, sprawling right on top of Mairon as they fell back onto the sofa in a clumsy mess of tangled limbs.

Melkor broke off almost immediately, much to Mairon’s displeasure, and propped himself up with an elbow on either side of Mairon’s head. He squared him with a very serious look and continued the sentence that had been so rudely interrupted.

“ — because I’ve already put the down payment on the ring and — ”

“ — you are a horrible person,” Mairon interjected. “Absolutely horrible,” he repeated, this time punctuating each word with a brief kiss.

Melkor tsked in mock disappointment. “I’m starting to get the impression that you really don’t want that ring.”

“And I’m under the impression that you’re playing awfully hard to get for someone who’s just proposed,” Mairon retorted.

“Hmm.”

Mairon groaned, impatience clear as day. “Look, you’re impossible, but I love you, so why don’t we just call it a truce and get on with it.”

“You just really want that ring.”

“I really do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> note: i imagine melkor is kind of a lot older than mairon, but that's a given bc he just seems like the daddy in this relationship


	10. (Please Don't) Deck The Halls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which everything is almost the same, except Arda is a small suburban town in the middle of nowhere and everyone's favorite dark lords are that weird, annoying couple that live in the old, haunted looking house down the road.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> look who's back
> 
> a bit longer this time around, featuring a multitude of other characters — just one big 'ol holiday fic for all your holiday fic needs \o/
> 
> also, maeglin owns a motel called The Motel
> 
> _timeline: around 3 years after first meeting_

It went like this — every year, every Christmas without fail —

Bilbo’s café tried its very hardest to whip up some low key suburban versions of the infamous Starbucks seasonal coffees; the whole place tastefully decorated in a rustic, minimalistic style that would not suggest its owner was nearing middle age. Thorin failed at subtlety time and time again, splurging on the most extravagant, thoughtful presents for his not so secret crush, and said crush was genuinely touched, but remained hopelessly oblivious. It was a pitiful routine. Also, a public spectacle. At some point in time, Fili and Kili had taken to handing out brightly colored flyers, each inscribed with an invitation to _Watch Our Uncle Pathetically Mope Around Like A Schoolboy In Love While Bilbo Repeatedly Fails To Notice He’s The Object Of His Affections._

Aside from everyone’s favorite Christmastime activity of the _watch Thorin suffer_ variety, the winter season was usually remotely tame — no major explosions, no mass outbreaks or epidemics, zero accounts of loss of limb, that sort of thing. Well, there was that one time Maedhros almost — nah, never mind.

Luckily for literally everyone involved, Melkor kept to himself. Not that the holiday season was any different from any other season in that aspect, Melkor just happened to have year round antisocial hermit tendencies, from January to December and over again. He and Mairon did nothing exceptional to bother their neighbors, maybe aside from refusing to decorate their house with tinsel and flickering lights, making them the only residence in the entire town that wasn’t all up in the Christmas spirit.

“Honestly,” Thuringwethil would say to Mairon, literally every time she passed him on the street, in the grocery store, that one time she rolled down her car window to holler at him from down the road as he was walking back from the gym, “it’s depressing. It’s so _un_ -festive. Take my place for example, that big ass reindeer I put in the front yard. Now that’s some quality Christmas decorating.”

“If I wanted to take tips from the person wearing the world’s ugliest penguin sweater, I would. But seeing as those are literal LED lights flickering atop that penguin’s hat, which offends my delicate sensibilities, I’m afraid I have to refuse.”

And so it continued. Mairon went on wearing various _un-festive_ shades of black (no, really, various shades, because black wasn’t just a one dimensional color in his book) and Thuringwethil carried on plotting his Christmassy demise. It probably involved eggnog and heaps of tinsel and, truth be told, Mairon didn’t want to know.

 

One night, following another lengthy episode of his friend’s nagging, he’d practically sprinted home and anxiously fumbled with the lock on the front door for a good two minutes, before bursting inside and practically slamming the door shut behind him. He leaned against it heavily and locked each bolt, latch and chain.

Melkor raised an eyebrow from where he was brewing himself a cup of cinnamon tea in the kitchen. Cinnamon, because Mairon had replaced all the regular tea stashes in their cupboards with limited edition seasonal flavors. Because he, in fact, did have a few festive bones in his body, just not in the ostentatious way Thuringwethil was hoping for.

Less was more, or whatever. A small pine tree stood by the living room coffee table (fake, obviously, as Mairon had discovered through trial and error that his dog tended to gnaw on pine needles), tastefully decorated, all ornaments color coded, of course. A garland hung here and there, the occasional minimalistic figurine, in various shades of matte black and copper.

“You missed a lock,” Melkor piped up, watching as Mairon continued to stand very still by the door. “By the looks of it you’re barricading us inside from an oncoming zombie invasion. That, or Thuringwethil was chasing you down the block waving fairy lights. Not that we need any more decorations, I mean, I barely recognized this place when I came home.”

Mairon shot him an unimpressed look. “It’s not exactly Extreme Home Makeover. I just got a tree, hung up some wreaths.”

“Who helped you?”

Mairon looked up from where he was attempting to kick off his shoes. “Hm?”

“I mean, who helped you decorate?”

Hanging his coat up on the rack by the door, Mairon turned to face Melkor with a frown of uncertainty. He was almost certain it was a trick question, or that Melkor was about to make him the punchline of some exceptionally lame joke. “No one,” he insisted.

“Bullshit,” Melkor was having a hard time fighting back a smile. Yeah, there was probably a bad pun on the horizon. “There’s no way you reached above the damn TV to hang the garland. Who’d you get to do that for you? Gothmog? Did you hire someone to move the couch over?”

Mairon leveled him with a glare burning enough to let Melkor know he was one short joke away from getting a roll of toilet paper for Christmas. Not that they bothered to get each other presents, they’d long since decided not to, but the sentiment mattered nonetheless.

In general, Mairon found himself hanging up decorations each year solely for the aesthetic purpose it served, not as part of some grander, more joyous scheme. For the same reason, he deigned it pointless to get anyone glamorous gifts, because frivolous spending was stupid and purely traditional (neither he nor Melkor had a great track record in terms of sticking to rules and regulations) and helped accomplish nothing but further fuel the monstrous beast of capitalism (okay, that was mainly Thuringwethil’s reasoning — Mairon just happened to be on the receiving end of her social justice rants more often than he would care to admit, and despite his best intentions, some of it must have rubbed off).

 

Sometime into mid-December, Mairon found himself cornered in a dark alley — or, accurately speaking, a corner of Thuringwethil’s living room. But it felt more like being trapped at the edge of a dead end street in the middle of the night with nowhere to run, two armed thugs blocking the only exit, than standing by the wall of a pleasant enough brightly lit living room. The two thugs being Thuringwethil and Maeglin, their weapons boxes of multicolored outdoor-use lights.

Obviously, Maeglin had been recruited by the _Harass Mairon Into Shoving A Christmas Tree Up His Ass_ campaign, because if anyone in town loved Christmas, it was him. There was a running bet amongst some of the children that he was actually Santa Claus in disguise, what with his motel looking like the fucking North Pole incarnate during the winter season. He had more decorations on the front door alone than Home Depot had in their entire festivities department. Holiday music played ceaselessly, in the motel lobby, on his radio, in his car, even his ringtone was changed to some Michael Bublé cover of a popular Christmas tune. Worst of all were the holiday sweaters (possibly hand knit, though Mairon could never quite prove it), their horribly unflattering designs impossible to describe with mere words.

“Take the lights and we’ll let you go.”

“I’m not gonna take the fucking lights.”

“It’s only a 500 piece set, man,” Maeglin insisted.

Thuringwethil looked at him in surprise, turning away from where she’d been menacingly looming over Mairon. “Where the hell did you find a 500 piece set? I couldn’t get anything over 200 count.”

“I called the manufacturer.”

“And you didn’t feel inclined to share this information?”

“How was I supposed to know you didn’t have your own shady Christmas contacts on speed dial this season, hm?”

Mairon decided he was in desperate need of a double espresso and possibly a month long cruise getaway to the Caribbean. Maybe the Christmas cheer wouldn’t reach him there. Christmas cheer was terrifying in the form of Maeglin.

“I’m going home,” he announced.  Neither of his captors heard over the sound of their heated festive discourse.

Stopped at a red light, Mairon came to the unfortunate conclusion that a cruise was a bit too farfetched of an idea, and chose to settle for the espresso alone.

The door to Bilbo’s Hobbit Hole was decorated with poorly scribbled window chalk drawings of what appeared to be Bilbo and Thorin and a multitude of colorful hearts. In other words, Bilbo had probably made the mistake of asking either Fili or Kili to write up the day’s specials and had yet to realize they’d drawn implicating art instead.

Mairon approached the counter and waited quite impatiently to place his order. The screaming children at the far end of the room weren’t helping with his growing migraine — he didn’t even have to look to know it was Bard’s exceptionally unruly spawn. But look he did, and found himself staring at the most amusing sight of Thranduil, dusted in an unsubtle amount of glitter and rainbow feathers, failing to control the three screaming gremlins. Mairon’s best guess was they’d spent a nice afternoon on arts and crafts projects, then Thranduil had taken the kids out for hot chocolate while Bard was at work. It would’ve been endearing, the romance of it all, if Thranduil had had the common sense not to get the miniature demons hyped up on sugary drinks this late into the evening.

Bilbo’s vaguely angry voice caught Mairon’s attention and he turned to face the man behind the counter, who was threatening him with the usual, “You call me _Mr. Dildo_ again and I will most certainly _not_ serve you.”

Mairon was too tired to play along. Any other day it’d have been fun. “You just did all my work for me,” he pointed out instead, mandatory mocking smirk in place (sure, he was exhausted, but he had a reputation to uphold, thank you very much). “I won’t push my luck.”

Despite the double espresso, he fell asleep embarrassingly early that day, face down on the living room couch, hand lopsidedly hanging over the edge and onto the floor. Though the next morning he found himself neatly tucked into bed — he came to the conclusion that Melkor must’ve taken pity on him shivering downstairs and carried him to bed at some point in the night. Small mercies and all, at least he didn’t freeze to death before it even started snowing, how embarrassing would that have been.  

 

Matters quieted down after that — no more ridiculous attempts at getting Mairon to deck the halls or whatever. He just hoped it wasn’t a bad sort of quiet, the calm before a storm.

Everything was almost normal enough to be considered a regular month like any other, with the exception of infinitely more annoying music on the radio. Melkor wholeheartedly hated seasonal music because, as he claimed, it wasn’t quality music, it made no sense. And Mairon, by extension, didn’t listen to too much Mariah Carey either.

All things considered, overzealous attempts at festivities were seemingly abandoned.

Then, a few days before Christmas break (which Mairon liked to call _all hell breaking loose_ , on account of the town’s children leaving school for a week or two and freely roaming the streets like some sort of wild animals on a rampage), the doorbell rang at an ungodly hour in the morning, at the first ass crack of dawn.

Mairon kicked his leg out in the general direction of where Melkor should’ve been lying next to him in bed and was entirely unsurprised to find the spot empty. Ah, his husband, the eternal insomniac, got up before the sun even graced the skies with its glowing presence on a daily basis and made up for it with three hundred coffees a day.

Bundled in a thick robe and a fuzzy blanket on top for good measure, Mairon padded downstairs just in time to catch the last lines of an incredibly awkward doorway exchange between Melkor and old man Saruman from next door.

Mairon leaned against the wall by the kitchen and watched in amusement as Melkor finally caught a glance of the mistletoe plant Mairon had stuck above the door a few days before. The tension was palpable as Melkor prayed to whatever deity may have been listening that Saruman didn’t notice and ask for a big ‘ol smooch for the sake of tradition.

Needless to say, he noticed. Right after handing Melkor a Tupperware container of something dark and goopy looking, there was an upwards quirk of the head and a crooked smile as the mistletoe was spotted.

Melkor wasn’t one to make polite small talk.

He countered Saruman’s weirdly suggestive grin with a look of pure and unadulterated disgust and bid him farewell with a curt, “Please leave,” before quite literally shutting the door in the man’s face. Getting on Saruman’s bad side was genuinely preferable to getting anywhere near the lip region of his face.

He turned around and met Mairon’s eyes with that exasperated expression Melkor only reserved for extraordinarily annoying people (read: usually Manwë) and bagged milk.

“Whatcha got there?” Mairon prompted conversationally, because Melkor clearly wasn’t going to discuss it without incentive.

“Homemade fig jam, apparently,” came the thoroughly displeased answer. “Or as I like to call it, compost. Or garbage, because no one gardens in late December.”

 

A week passed and Mairon was ready to say that the worst of Thuringwethil’s nagging was behind him. Neither she nor Maeglin made any more attempts at forcing him to parade around town in fleece antlers or a Santa hat/beard combo (it’d happened before; Maeglin had ended up in the ER with a broken pinky finger, long story).

It was entirely possible that Thuringwethil had her hands all too full with babysitting Fëanor’s youngest while he made holiday preparations, namely buying large planks of wood to nail the doors and windows of his house shut so his multitude of children wouldn’t come flooding in to disrupt his pathetic lonely wallowing — or something of that nature, no one really wanted to know what went on behind closed doors at Fëanor’s. The perpetual traumatized look on Maedhros’ face was evidence enough to prove Fëanor did squat to reign in his brood, instead leaving the job to his eldest son, who already had the frown lines to show for it, at the ripe age of eighteen.

The town was generally silent in the final days leading up to Christmas itself, the wild decorating sprees and shopping escapades calming down in the final moments before the holiday, people staying indoors and dieting, conserving their energy to devour a months’ worth of food in one night. Also, it was cold _as fuck_ and snowing heavily, and nobody had the time or desire to shovel their driveways, so that was that.

If Bilbo had noticed his not so secret admirer’s nephews’ creative artwork on the door of his café, he didn’t let on, nor did he act upon it. Maybe it was just so poorly drawn that he’d had trouble recognizing the doodles — Thorin’s beard rather made him look like Chewbacca in the drawing. It was plain as day that everyone close to the pair was growing fed up with their, or rather Bilbo’s, inability to fucking get with the program and make out.

Thorin most of all. He was a walking tornado of unrequited emotions and primal frustration, and if that caused him to bicker with Thranduil more so than usual, that was his business. Well, and the whole town’s, because _a)_ their shouting matches were loud enough for everyone to hear from three blocks over, and _b)_ they were quite a sight to behold, all red faced and vindictive in the way that only unfriendly exes could be.

Meanwhile, Mairon and Melkor reveled in the joys of living on the outskirts of town, away from all the high stakes suburban drama. It was like reality TV, except worse, and there was nothing better than staying far, _far_ away from it all.

 

Up until Mairon pulled into the driveway on Christmas Eve and found the entire house strung up in a wide variety of garish, colorful lights.

He burst inside and, upon failing to locate Melkor in his office/hermit hole, stalked right upstairs in search of his suspected culprit. It was so very unlike Melkor to decorate anything, let alone so outlandishly, but unless Santa’s fucking elves jumped out of the storybooks and onto the roof of their house to spread the Christmas cheer, Melkor was the next best suspect.

Mairon found him out on the bedroom balcony, staring out into the white beyond, a glass of red wine in one hand, the bottle itself in the other. Hm, day drinking (jarringly rare) and an expensive Merlot at that, was bad news.

Mairon changed his planned approach. “I was gonna bitch at you for making the house look like fucking Rudolph threw up all over it, but now I’m getting the impression that you’re equally dismayed by this turn of events.”

Melkor threw the glass back and drained it with one gulp. The reply was not quite what Mairon had anticipated. “Manwë called.”

Ah, yes. It was the _Manwë called_ variation of day drinking.

Watching in sick fascination as Melkor filled the glass to the brim once more, Mairon took a deep, uncertain breath and dared to ask, “And?”

The wine had evidently wormed its way to his bloodstream already, inducing the tipsy talkative side of Melkor that Mairon so rarely got to see. Usually, when his brother was the topic of a conversation, he’d stay deathly silent for hours and then throw a vase against a wall or something. “Well, aside from wishing me all the best this holiday season, he had the gall to invite us over for dinner tomorrow.”

It was the most ridiculous thing Mairon had ever heard.

“That is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” Mairon said out loud, apparently. He was nothing if not thorough, so he elaborated. “First old man Saruman brings that health violation over as a peace offering and invites us for Christmas dinner, then tries to plant one on you, and now your brother actually, literally asks if you would _like_ to come over? Did it sound like he was hiding in the linen closet? Because I doubt Varda would let him get away with inviting _you_ to set foot in her safe haven. Honestly, what’s next — Bard stops by to let us know he has a few extra seats and would like us to join him and his herd of wild baboons? Though personally I would love to see wine mom Thranduil drink himself under the table — ”

He trailed off when he realized he was ranting, and Melkor was holding out a second glass for him to take.

“Why do you think I drink?” Melkor summed up, rather eloquently.

“You really don’t.”

“Then I ought to start, don’t you think?”

With that, he stepped inside, sliding the balcony door shut behind him and arranging the curtains back into presentable shape, before strolling across the bedroom towards the fireplace at the end. He wasn’t quite wobbling yet, but he was on the right track to a nice alcohol induced buzz. He sank down into one of the two adjacent armchairs and motioned for Mairon to join him.

A moment later, when everyone was all cozied up in their respective seats, Melkor leveled Mairon, who was pointedly not drinking, with A Look. “A glass or two can’t hurt you.”

“Someone needs to look after your sorry ass.”

“A glass or two today, a glass or two tomorrow at dinner, it’s harmless. Good for digestion, at any rate.” He paused, deep in thought. “What do you say to pizza tomorrow? No more pineapples, promise.”

Mairon scoffed. “Do you honestly think Pizza Hut delivers on Christmas Day?”

“I’d like to see them try and deny me my pizza.”

They sank into comfortable silence after that. Mairon begrudgingly took to drinking his wine, because Melkor wouldn’t stop staring at him and it was beginning to border on unnerving intensity.

Some unidentified period of time passed and Melkor began to doze off. It probably had something to do with the sheer amount of glasses he’d polished off before Mairon had even come home.

A sudden thought dragged Mairon out of his thoughts. “Wait, so if you didn’t drape those lights over the roof — ”

He’d half expected Melkor to be too far gone to answer, yet the reply was still loud and clear enough to signal some degree of lucidity. “T’was Thuringwethil and that — what’s his name — the cheery goth one —  _Maeglin_. They left you a note on the kitchen counter. You can kill them later, I s’pose.”

Mairon hummed noncommittally. He would undoubtedly murder them later. Or worse, if he managed to come up with a payback prize just vicious enough (he always did).

A few more minutes passed, maybe half an hour. The warm glow of the fireplace was comforting enough to lull Mairon into a light sleep, half aware of his surroundings, half well and truly drifting off.

Melkor’s vaguely slurred voice managed to break through his drowsy haze.

“What’s the point of mistletoe above the front door? We never meet in the doorway, what the fuck, Mairon?”

He pointedly pretended not to have heard.

 

The next morning, Mairon woke up first (Melkor had drained three quarters of the bottle and was evidently sleeping in past noon, no surprise there) and took to taping mistletoe plants above every accessible surface in the house.

It was an undeniable success, when Melkor woke up.

They started with the one dangling above the shower stall.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in conclusion, happy holidays, my friends  
> someone draw art of these losers in ugly christmas sweaters, please, thanks  
> 


	11. Nothin' Like Summer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which everything is almost the same, except Arda is a small suburban town in the middle of nowhere and everyone's favorite dark lords are that weird, annoying couple that live in the old, haunted looking house down the road.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm actually alive, _shocker_
> 
> happy summer, y'all
> 
> _timeline: around 3 years after first meeting_

It was a surefire sign that the long foreboded heat wave had hit the city when Mairon came down the stairs one Sunday morning to find Melkor laying on the floor of his office in nothing but his boxers and an unbuttoned, utterly atrocious Hawaiian print shirt.

Mairon stopped at the foot of the stairs, looking across the dining room at the wide open French doors, past which Melkor, flat on his back on the floor, was just barely visible.

Handling situations like these was best with a pinch of plausible deniability.

Mairon stalked up to him, equally underdressed (the temperature was agonizing, a stone’s throw from literally burning in hell), and opened with a tentative, “This is new.”

Melkor, entirely all too relaxed being caught doing whatever the hell he was doing, cracked open one eye and waggled his fingers in greeting. Not exactly the most exuberant of hellos.

“Am I going to get an explanation, or is this some new trend I’m unaware of?” Mairon continued, raking his eyes over Melkor’s body sprawled across the floor. The sight was definitely one he could get used to seeing on a daily basis, and he added, “Not that I’m averse to it.”

Melkor, eyes remaining closed, lifted one arm off the floor and gestured vaguely around the room.

“You see, it’s hot. And the tiles are cold.”

Mairon hummed in thought. “Taking a nap in your office is a sure sign of an unhealthy dependence on your job.”

Melkor ignored the accusation.

“Come outside with me.”

At that, Melkor did not remain impassive; instead his eyes flew open and he pushed himself up, leaning back on his elbows.

“Out there?” he demanded. “In the sun? Look, say what you want about me, but I’m not an idiot.”

He dropped back down to the tiled floor, this time spreading his arms above his head in a failed indoor rendition of a snow angel.

There were times when Melkor was right, and Mairon conceded; and more often occasions when Mairon was infinitely more adept at talking sense into the other. But the most trying were situations where they clung steadfast to their own convictions and nothing — absolutely nothing — could make either’s resolution waver.

Such a contrast was Mairon’s inborn love for basking in the sun, heat wave or not, and Melkor’s passionate hatred for any weather warmer than partly-cloudy.

And while he claimed not to be an idiot, and chose to plaster himself to the cool, tiled floor, there was the case of his office’s location in the sunroom — beams of light flickering through the glass roof nonetheless. Maybe there was a part of him, tiny and locked up deep down, that craved the light.

Mairon didn’t feel like arguing about such preferences. It would only lead to existential discussions of good, bad, and morality. It was summertime, he was off work, and he was going to crash on a deckchair and get some goddamn, well-deserved peace and quiet.

“Then I’ll be outside,” he announced, and barely made it four steps to the patio exit before Melkor called him out.

“What’re you gonna do out there? Fill out bank statements?”

He thought he was all that and more. Positively hilarious.

“Ha-ha. I’m going to grab a magazine and spend some quality, one-on-one time with the sun. You can keep your pasty ass inside all month, see if I care.”

“As if. I have never seen you relax in all the years I’ve known you.”

Mairon lingered at the open door and waited for a second, cleverer response, sure to come. Predictably enough, Melkor took no longer than a few seconds to come up with something less than appropriate: “I mean, you _could_ stay here.” He motioned upwards. “There’s sun, but it’s not stifling. And we’re obviously going to come up with a fun pastime that doesn’t require any clothes at all.”

Mairon snorted and drawled back a snappy, “Sex creates friction, friction creates heat. I wouldn’t want to inconvenience you.”

With that, he stepped outside, leaving the door ajar. He didn’t want Melkor to suffocate amidst his indoor hermit lounging.

It took approximately an hour and a half for Melkor to grow completely and utterly bored doing nothing. He never did have a particularly lengthy attention span, growing impatient and jittery when his mind was unoccupied for too long.

So, he peeled himself off the ground and went to harass Mairon in the yard. He was certain Mairon would appreciate the company.

Instead,

“You’re blocking the sun.”

Mairon squinted up at him, one arm lifted to supply some shade.

Melkor had his hair up now, a monstrously messy ponytail atop his head. It cast a dark halo around his scowling face. He hated heat and it showed, plain as day.

“It’s deadass noon and you’ve been laid out like that for far too long.”

Mairon shrugged noncommittally. “Your point?”

“Gingers shouldn’t tan.”

“Well, _you_ could do with some sun. I’m sure it would alleviate at least some of your eternal grumpiness.”

“This isn’t grumpiness. I’m concerned for your safety. If you burn to a crisp on my watch, it’s gonna be on me. And then the feds will come to investigate the bizarre circumstances surrounding your death, and they’ll ask if I was around at the time, and then I’ll get put away for god knows how long. All because you went against your nature as a carrot top.”

“You really are relentless,” Mairon sighed eventually. He didn’t make the smallest effort to comply and go indoors, just leaned his head back further, unruffled by the pathetic excuse for a threat.

Melkor looked proud. “You know me so well.”

The quick reply was not what Melkor had anticipated following his heartfelt worst case scenario.

Mairon fidgeted around, rediscovering a comfortable position, and pursed his lips.

“In that case, make yourself useful and get me an iced coffee. I could use a pick me up.”

When Melkor failed to fulfill the demand immediately, momentarily dumfounded by the sheer brazenness, Mairon squinted one eye open and raised an eyebrow.

“You do so love to indulge me,” he added, when it became clear that Melkor needed more convincing.

For whatever reason, hidden motives or no, Melkor turned away with a disbelieving huff and disappeared back into the house.

Mairon’s boldness — the self-assuredness and arrogance — was a distinct character trait. And it was fucking _hot_. For all he times he’d pretended to be meek, make an unsuspecting first impression, there was nothing more attractive than when he finally showed his true colors and let nothing get in the way of what he wanted. And while he had a weakness for letting Melkor fully dominate him during more amorous encounters, there was no other aspect of his life where he’d relinquish authority. And while it was dangerously alluring, it was equally abhorrently annoying.

Especially because Melkor couldn’t resist his whims. There was something positively enchanting about Mairon’s smooth voice and beguiling eyes, charm turned up tenfold when he was hell bent on something or another.

So, there he was, plucking ice from the tray and dumping it into the blender, because Mairon had a fancy.

Absorbed as he was in his marginally irritated coffee-making, he didn’t notice the presence behind him until Mairon leaned against the counter at his side. Melkor jumped and a few cubes went scattering across the kitchen tile. He ignored that. He was too proud to crawl around to retrieve them.

“Why can’t you have a normal hobby — ?” he asked, resigned, as Mairon watched him with those eerily observant cat-eyes of his. “Something other than materializing from the shadows.”

“You were right,” Mairon said instead, and _damn_ were those words nice to hear. “I fried my ass off. And Wolf got jumpy and wouldn’t stop licking my hand. But I still want the coffee.”

“I wouldn’t dream it otherwise.”

Mairon grinned suddenly, opened his mouth to say something playfully derogatory, and Melkor made the only intelligent move his current situation would allow and turned on the blender. Needless to say, the glower on Mairon’s face at being interrupted was worth the prior embarrassment of getting spooked and making a mess.

“You were saying?” Melkor asked innocently, once the noise died down.

“Jack shit,” Mairon fired back. “Now you’ll never find out.”

Melkor didn’t give in to the obvious taunting, instead leaned over to the adjacent counter and plucked up the two glasses he’d fetched earlier; twisty straws and all. They were grown men with stable jobs and a considerable income, but the top priority was color coding their drinking accessories, of course.

“You know what would be perfect?” Mairon pondered aloud, once he’d taken a sip and made a wholly inappropriate sound of pleasure that went straight to Melkor’s nether regions. “Sitting outside with these. The difference in temperature really gets you appreciating how cold the coffee is.”

“A simple thank you would suffice,” Melkor retorted, because he wasn’t going outside during a heat wave, ever. Not even if Mairon brought the damn bed out there and laid out a trail of roses, he himself sprawled on top, spread out and waiting. He willed the improper images from his mind (neatly tucked them away for another time) and instead asked: “Why can’t we compromise on a more rational activity? Instead of laying ourselves out on that frying pan you call a sunbed, we could, perhaps, stop by a pool?”

Mairon snorted. “You couldn’t pay me to willingly submerge myself in a deep pit of ice water.”

“It’s refreshing,” Melkor countered. There was a tinge of whine in his voice, because the idea of diving into a cool lagoon was starting to sound really damn blissful.

“It’s masochism.”

“Not all of us are afraid of drowning in the shower, dear.”

Mairon swallowed a big gulp of coffee and frowned; not especially nicely. “Now, now, there’s no need to poke fun at my perfectly logical phobia.”

Melkor set his half-finished coffee down by the sink and raised his hands in surrender. “Point taken, my apologies. But it’s either swimming or accepting the invite to old man Saruman’s grill.”

“You’re joking.”

“He said anyone who’s anyone is gonna be there. Four in the afternoon, just two days from now,” Melkor explained, watching with unsuppressed glee as Mairon’s eyes widened with horrified disbelief. “I’m sure you can’t wait for a romantic outing, right?”

Mairon mirrored Melkor’s previous movements and put his glass away. “Fine. Pool it is. As long as I’m never again faced with trying his oddly seasoned rare steaks.”

“I knew you’d see reason,” Melkor gloated.

Mairon made a valiant effort not to stick his tongue out. It was so difficult not to mock Melkor during his juvenile breakthroughs.

“I never said I’d touch the water,” Mairon piped up a moment later. “I’m content on a poolside towel, just watching you swim — ” he trailed off and his thoughts did a headfirst dive into the gutter, “ — actually, that’s a great idea. Swimming. Why didn’t you think of that sooner?”

“Needed a climatic buildup.”

Mairon failed to hide his smile. He’d long ago outgrown his internal cringing at every dopey, lopsided grin Melkor induced. That and the butterflies. Those were relentless.

And Melkor didn’t bother to pretend he hadn’t seen, instead closing the small distance between them and cupping Mairon’s face with his hands.

“On second thought, I don’t mind you sunbathing in the slightest,” he mused aloud.

Mairon’s brows raised in mellow surprise. “Oh?”

“Brings out your freckles,” Melkor clarified, simple as that, and pressed a comically overdone kiss to the bridge of Mairon’s nose, before going for the entire expanse of his face.

Mairon tugged himself free, childishly gagging at the blatant display of affection. There was no displeasure in his tone though, not a single visible crease of worry. All fun and games.

They remained bare inches from each other, at ease with the proximity.

Melkor went full sap within a minute of the comfortable silence.

“You’re beautiful,” he declared, decidedly unabashed by his openness and lack of brain to mouth filter.

Mairon went ahead with a one-shouldered shrug in response. “I know.”

The arrogance had no limit. He waited for a follow up statement, and Melkor wondered where in his life he’d gone wrong.

Mairon cracked first. “ — And?”

“And what?”

“And _what_ ,” Mairon echoed. “You obviously want something; appealing to my vanity.”

That induced a thoroughly exasperated scoff from Melkor. “So I can’t compliment my own husband anymore without accusations of selfish motive? I’m not that opportunistic.”

Mairon didn’t blush at the admission. If anything, it emboldened his next suggestion.

“How about, instead of empty words, you come upstairs and show me.”

It was Melkor’s turn to deliver a mocking frown. “But I thought sex created friction, and friction created heat. I wouldn’t want to inconvenience you, lover.”

“Make an exception.”

Mairon’s tone didn’t leave any room for negotiation.

They compromised and cracked the bedroom window open — alleviating the scorching heat — giving the whole block a good show, loud and clear.


	12. In Sickness (And In Health)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which everything is almost the same, except Arda is a small suburban town in the middle of nowhere and everyone's favorite dark lords are that weird, annoying couple that live in the old, haunted looking house down the road.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the little one gets sick
> 
> _timeline: around 6-7 years after first meeting_

Melkor slammed the front door shut behind himself and tracked muddy boot prints across the hall and into the kitchen. He needed a cup of something hot; preferably boiling enough to set his insides on fire and relieve the incessant shaking of his frozen hands. He wasn’t sure how he’d even made it home in one piece without the heating in his car. It’d gone faulty no more than a week ago, and he’d been far too lazy to drop by a mechanic, and then a trillion feet of snow had unexpectedly fallen, mid-November, much to his displeasure — and he made up for his jittery fingers with steaming coffee and steaming tea, and literally anything as long as it was steaming and physically burned all the way down.

He zoned out as he waited for the water to boil, the bubbling of the kettle lulling him into a trancelike state as the rest of his body began to thaw out. It was eerily silent throughout the entire house — no Wolf trotting around him in circles to pry out a treat, no Mairon complaining about the filthy mess Melkor had made of the floors.

That should have been the first warning, really.

The screaming of the kettle dragged him awake and alert, and Melkor felt as groggy as if he’d just woken from a month-long sleep. He could worry about the muddy footprints later; simply worry about everything else _later_. His mental agenda rearranged itself, pulling work down to the bottom, a hot shower and lengthy nap now topping the hierarchy.

He kicked his wet boots off and left them on the kitchen tile, fully anticipating to put his dastardly plan to action. The tea smelled alluring, the heat of it beckoned him closer and it was almost too powerful to resist, even temporarily.

And it was to be the priority, up until Melkor, _steaming_ mug in hand, climbed up the stairs only to be met with Mairon’s great, oversized wolf dog bounding at him from the direction of the bedroom. This time, the warning bells did go off in Melkor’s consciousness — the stairway doggy door was indeed ajar, and the resident dog was, in fact, actively loitering about upstairs.

“Get your own treat,” Melkor mumbled, praying that the damn animal would miraculously understand Human and stop blocking his path, lest he spill the contents of his mug. “Door’s open, go to the kitchen, the last drawer on the bottom right side.”

Wolf didn’t seem to grasp the instructions, just wagged his tail and stared up at Melkor with those annoying big eyes.

“What are you even doing up here?” he added, to himself more so than the unresponsive dog; then got his answer the second he crossed the threshold into the bedroom.

The lights were off, save for one dim lamp on the bedside table. Curtains were drawn, windows were thoroughly shut, the fireplace crackled as the last of the logs burned out, embers flickering in their death throes.

And Mairon himself was curled into a furiously red burrito atop the bed. It’d always humored Melkor, when he bundled himself like that — the bright shade of his favorite fleece blanket, in duet with his coppery hair always made for a striking image: much like the flame at the tip of a matchstick, the color enhanced by the dying light.

Melkor put his tea aside, onto one of the conveniently placed coasters on top of the dresser. Mairon made sure every surface was always equipped with two to three coasters, but that was beside the point at the given moment. More pressing was the multitude of tissues strewn across the floor, a few empty mugs littering the surface of Mairon’s bedside, and a questionable half-eaten bag of Cheetos squarely on Melkor’s own pillow (he shuddered just thinking about sleeping amidst the crumbs).

The verdict: Mairon was sick.

And asleep, Melkor noted, considering his original plan of hopping in the shower and burning his tongue on his earl grey. It still wasn’t that far-fetched of a concept: Mairon tended to sleep like the dead when he was truly wrung out and tired, and Melkor could get away with a whole lot, unnoticed, in the meantime.

But the fiery blanket burrito was visibly shivering, and Mairon’s sock feet were poking out of the bundle, and Melkor couldn’t help the twinge of sympathy in his chest. He cursed the day he met Mairon, cursed himself for falling prey to his arrogant words and great ass, cursed the day he married the bastard — he hadn’t had a day to himself since, because he had the wellbeing of another person on his mind, not just his own. And as much as Melkor told himself he hated caring, he didn’t. He loved every minute of it.

And so, he crossed the room, his long awaited/quickly forgotten tea abandoned on its fancy coaster.

Crouching at the side of the bed, he worked his magic, once more proving to the world that he could be the most annoying motherfucker in existence if he only put his mind to it. And he did — nudging Mairon’s shoulder over and over and over until his brow furrowed and he startled awake with the most endearing snuffling sound Melkor had ever heard.

He spared no time, addressing Mairon the moment his wide honey-gold eyes flickered open.

“Remember that time we went on a walk down in Ossiriand, and we sat down by the river because you wanted to take a moment to appreciate the scenery? And I didn’t last longer than fifteen minutes because the damn willow tree was rustling so bad the leaves were driving me up the wall?”

Mairon dropped his head back onto his pillow, eyes drifting back shut. He failed to see the relevance, but indulged Melkor nonetheless. “I remember.”

Melkor shuffled closer to the bed. “That’s what you look like now. Like those leaves. Shivering and shaking all over.”

It was painfully apparent that Mairon, had he been capable, would’ve rolled his eyes. But he didn’t, because he could barely move a pinky without knocking at death’s door (or so he felt).

“The story was unnecessary,” Mairon muttered. “You could’ve just said, without making fun of me. I’m dying and you’re making fun of me.”

The slur in his voice, and the overdramatic edge to the words alieved Melkor’s initial worries. Mairon was being his usual theatrical self, even in his current state, which was the best and most honest sign that he wasn’t, in actuality, dying.

Melkor took to taunts. It was how he showed affection and it only ended in physical violence half the time, when Mairon, quote: _couldn’t take a harmless joke._

“Oh, but it made for such a vivid mental image. The rustling leaves and your shaky fingers: identical. And your chattering teeth complete the whole picture.”

Mairon swatted at him, or tried to, as far as his weak muscles would allow. Melkor found himself having to move an entire inch back to avoid the no doubt deadly blow; and Mairon didn’t even make the effort to try and land a second hit. His hand dropped limp onto the mattress, seemingly exhausting his daily dose of physical exercise. He was still shaking, whether from his fever or newly awakened unsuppressed anger, and Melkor fully forewent his long-discarded tea in favor of an entirely different source of warmth.

“Alright, move over.”

Mairon grumbled something incomprehensible that may have been _fuck off._ All it did was strengthen Melkor’s resolve — he got to his feet, pulled off his coat, unwrapped his scarf, let it all fall to the floor amidst the tissue garden, and he flung himself over Mairon, very nearly crushing his skull with his elbow. _Nearly_ , because he didn’t.

And that was followed by some scrambling, as Melkor dove beneath the covers (already warmed up, small mercies and all that), and wrapped himself around Mairon’s smaller frame to physically cease his trembling.

It took him about four seconds to realize that not only were the covers pre-heated, but they also —

“ _Fuck_ , did you let the dog on the bed?”

Mairon grumbled in response. “I was cold.”

“So you were spooning with the dog?”

“He’s warm.”

“Everything smells like dog now.”

“You big baby. Get over it.”

Melkor snapped his mouth shut. There was no use quarreling with that argument. Instead, he wormed closer, pressing his face into the back of Mairon’s head, because at least his hair smelled nice, not like dog at all.

Tranquility took over only to be disrupted mere seconds later; Melkor just couldn’t find his inner peace.

“ _Fuck_ , your feet are cold.”

“I’m wearing socks.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Your _socks_ are cold.”

“You’re free to leave, dear.”

Again, Melkor shut up.

Some minutes later, maybe an hour, who the hell knew, somewhere between the realm of waking consciousness and pleasant slumber, Melkor cracked an eye open as Marion’s hardly audible voice broke the silence.

“Can I have your tea?”

Now, Melkor was a really nice guy, and there was no limit to the things he’d do for Mairon, but he was warm, and he was comfortable in their embrace, and he had no intention whatsoever of getting up. He pretended to be asleep: an infallible act.

Of course, Mairon knew him too well, knew his habits, his breathing patterns, knew the jump in his pulse when he was obviously lying.

And even through his feverish delirium, he was wicked enough to twist over and stick his ice cold hands beneath the hem of Melkor’s shirt — freezing enough to wake the dead, let alone a stubborn mule of a man.

Needless to say, Melkor leapt of the bed and delivered the tea; went downstairs and heated it up for good measure. And Mairon reveled in the fact that he had Melkor wrapped around his finger, requested some biscuits on the side for the fun of it.


	13. The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which everything is almost the same, except Arda is a small suburban town in the middle of nowhere and everyone's favorite dark lords are that weird, annoying couple that live in the old, haunted looking house down the road.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here we have Holidays Are Gross: A Tragedy In Three Parts
> 
> creds for two of the prompts i used in this part go to: [_samwisespotatoes_](http://archiveofourown.org/users/samwisespotatoes) and _aurawolfgirl_
> 
> _timeline: around 3-4 years after first meeting_

There’d always been a certain taboo surrounding holidays in the household — let alone Christmas, which was a downright nightmare. But the rest of them; hardly better.

 

/i./

 

“There’s no such thing as selflessness on Valentine’s Day.”

Mairon was standing in the middle of the supermarket chocolate aisle, eyeing the flashy box in his hands with distaste. It was adorned with cartoon hearts all over, interchanging bright pink and red, and Mairon was disappointed in humanity.

Melkor plucked it from his grasp and tossed it into the basket — themed packaging had no impact on his fundamental need for sugar.

“How so?”

“Corporations use it to exploit people and money; people _and_ their money. Every brand releases a collection in fifty shades of pink: decorations, chocolates, designer lingerie, you name it. It’s sad.”

The line to the checkout was small enough, and quickly made smaller when the person in front let Melkor cut ahead. Mairon scoffed to himself: their reputation continued to precede them.

“That’s the thing with corporations, love. They bleed you dry and give nothing in return.”

“This isn’t limited to the industry,” Mairon prattled on. “I mean, what else can you expect from moneymaking moguls, after all? But people — singular people, every last one of them — they’re all the same. You think they buy a box of pralines for their dearest beloved out of the goodness of their heart? No. They want something in return: a gift, a ring, a good fuck — ”

In the midst of scanning their items, the cashier raised his eyebrows, then ducked his head to hide his reaction. Mairon sighed, having divulged too much of his personal convictions in public already. He retained eye contact with Melkor and tilted his head towards the register in the universal motion for _you pay_.

And Melkor did, because half the bags were filled with his sugar-rush supply anyway.

It wasn’t until they were halfway across the parking lot that Mairon felt compelled to continue, and drive his point home.

“And you’re just like the lot. You buy five boxes of chocolate and you think that’ll be enough to get me into bed with you.”

Mairon kept walking, eyes set on his car at the far end, while Melkor stopped short. He stared incredulously at Mairon’s retreating back and instinctively readjusted his grip on the grocery bags.

A moment passed, then he hollered after Mairon. “I didn’t think I had to get you _anything_ to get laid — ”

Mairon kept walking, entirely unmoved; the admission proving ineffective. All it did was startle a passing Amras, who picked up his pace and scampered away.

 

/

 

And it wasn’t just Mairon that had a chip on his shoulder, hated humanity for all it was and would be. His and Melkor’s alliance was the best sort of all: those who threw shade together, stayed together.

“That is disgusting,” Melkor remarked, as he stared out the window and across the street.

They were sitting side by side in Bilbo’s café, synchronized sipping on oversized coffees — staying inside for a change, rather than ordering takeout and bolting as soon as possible to avoid interpersonal interaction. It wasn’t a change of heart that prompted the decision, rather the sudden snowstorm some vengeful deity had whipped up.

Mairon followed Melkor’s gaze and failed to uncover the meaning behind his disgruntled observation. “What is?”

Taking a sip and setting down his foam cup, Melkor pointed outside at something in the distance. His frown deepened and he dropped both hands to the tabletop and steepled his fingers.

“Those two, making out in their car. I’ll bet they think no one can see them.”

Mairon took another look, this time squinting to see through the furious blanket of snow. They’d taken the booth by the window, so close they could feel the chill permeating the walls of the building. Still, Mairon saw nothing. Visibility was awful, and it proved Melkor’s eyesight was inhuman.

“What does it matter?” he asked eventually, once a headache began to bloom from his strenuous staring. “You get like that, too. When you’re in a _very_ good mood and self-control flies out the window, and you’re all grabby hands and hushed whispers in the backseat.”

Melkor opened and closed his mouth, wrapping his hands protectively around his coffee. He fumbled with vocabulary as he tried to retort.

“That’s different.”

Mairon shrugged, a tiny rise of shoulders, and reached over the table to snatch Melkor’s coffee from under his nose.

“I don’t see how.”

Melkor huffed. “It just —  _is_.”

Mairon absentmindedly tapped the lid of the cup he’d stolen, mulling something over in his mind as he retained intense eye contact.

“Because it’s Valentine’s, and you’ve already seen enough lip-locking in one day to last the whole year? Or maybe you’re just jealous you’re not the one getting off in that Rover. Hell knows you’d like to steam up the windows.”

He finished his narration with a self-satisfied smirk and took a sip of the other’s coffee. He then sputtered, appalled, and his hand flew up to cover his mouth before he could do an elaborate spit take.

“I take that back,” he said. “You’re bitter because you’re coffee’s bitter. You are what you eat. You ingest liquid bitterness and expect to be happy in life? Think again.”

Melkor took back the cup as Mairon held it out to him in disgust. He himself preferred it black — like his hair, like his car, his clothes, his soul. Mairon wasn’t satisfied until he dumped the store’s entire supply of sugar into his own concoction, possibly added some caramel and far too much cinnamon for extra flavor.

Mairon drained his own coffee to dull the unsavory taste in his mouth. He considered throwing it towards the trash bin across the room, simply to see if he could make the shot, then decided against it. When he looked back at Melkor, he found himself facing a suspiciously sly smile.

“Yes?” Mairon prompted.

“I think I’d like to take you up on that offer,” Melkor said, “to steam up the windows.”

“That wasn’t an offer. You’re despicable.”

Melkor stared on; Mairon reciprocated with his own glare. A beat passed, then another, then:

“Alright, let’s go.”

 

/

 

That wasn’t to say they couldn’t have fun if they put their minds to it. Mairon had brilliant ideas, Melkor was more than willing to go along with them — the more insane the better.

Though sometimes, the simple things in life sufficed. Like the pair of handcuffs Melkor spun around his fingers as he entered the room.

“No.”

Melkor’s shit-eating grin deflated and he sagged down in pathetic sadness.

He tried again, “Pretty please?”

Mairon just barely refrained from childishly crossing his arms. “No force on Earth nor heaven could get me to change my mind.”

Melkor stepped forward, throwing himself onto the bed by Mairon’s side.

“But they’re fur trimmed. And pink.”

Mairon grimaced. “My point exactly. From the dollar store, I’m sure. A child could pull those apart.”

“Please don’t be vanilla on this day,” Melkor took to pleading. “This one day of the year, let’s do something _fun_.”

Mairon turned over on his side, fully facing Melkor’s grumpy pout. He twisted a loose strand of black hair around his finger and tucked it behind Melkor’s ear in a gentle gesture of affection to soften the upcoming blow.

“That has got to be the least sexy thing you’ve said in your life,” he concluded, and watched with pity as Melkor’s expression fell even more.

“ _Mairon_.”

“Hm?”

“Please.”

“No.”

“Please, baby.”

“ _No_.”

“Please, I’ll even — ”

Whatever promise Melkor was going to make was cut short, as Mairon propped himself up on his elbow and lit up with pure smugness.

“Fine,” he said. “But _I’m_ cuffing _you_.”

 

/ii./

 

“I’d like to make an announcement,” Mairon said, halfway down the staircase. He stepped into the living room and faced all those present: namely the tail-wagging dog, and Melkor. “I’m not leaving the house today.”

“How ‘bout work?” Melkor asked over his steaming mug of tea. Some tasteless herbal shit, no doubt — he was turning over a new, healthy leaf. _Ha_ , tea puns.

“I called in sick,” Mairon explained, then feigned a weak cough. “I’m terribly ill, I’m afraid.”

Wolf trotted over to the kitchen after Mairon and circled around his legs until he got Mairon’s attention, and a morning treat on the side. Bone in mouth, the dog retreated to the back terrace to gnaw on his breakfast.

“And the real reason is — ?”

Mairon slammed the fridge shut, because there was quite literally nothing to eat, and stared at the polished chrome with a burning intensity.

“Well,” he finally said, once the fridge had combusted under the heat of his laser eye glare. Metaphorically, of course. “The date, for one. I’m not stepping one foot out the doorway on St. Patty’s.”

Melkor choked on a laugh.

Mairon bared his teeth.

Melkor grinned. “I completely forgot. It’s your day today, you proper leprechaun.”

Mairon stalked across the room and swatted him with a dish towel.

 

/

 

The problem was the hair — glowing bright and fiery in the sunlight. The freckles didn’t help much, nor did the unimpressive height.

Once enough jokes had been cracked, and Mairon’s limit had been exceeded, he’d started becoming a recluse, one day each year.

Melkor didn’t take the hint. He lived to tease anyone he could get his greedy hands on.

 

/

 

Really, it’d all started the year Mairon moved in with Melkor. The year he packed up the life he knew and started fresh in a new place. It was perfectly lovely, save for the small inconvenience that Mairon was shit at making friends, and every last one of the town’s inhabitants were downright assholes.

It was never his intention to gain popularity, hence the attitude of the masses did little to dishearten him. If anything, a healthy dose of notoriety would suffice, and _that_ he acquired with shocking ease.

Everything was fine and dandy until the first, god-forsaken St. Patrick’s day rolled around, and Mairon just so happened to be wearing green.

Thorin had been the first to make a joke, and Mairon had brushed it off as just another one of Thorin’s irredeemable, stupid habits. But news carried fast in suburbia, and soon Thorin passed it on to Bilbo, who’d told Gandalf, who’d told Bard, who’d told Thranduil, and before the day was up, Fëanor himself was laughing himself sick on his couch, sipping his third beer, cackling into the phone to an equally amused Elrond.

That day next year, Bilbo’s café had already included a 10% discount for all residing leprechauns.

It was in that moment that Mairon had decided never to show his face outdoors on that particular day again.

 

/

 

He wondered, briefly, if Maedhros understood his pain. Eye-catching ginger, even more so than Mairon himself, with an audible Irish lilt to his accent.

Though he, at least, was of intimidating stature, and no one dared to ask him if he was close enough to the ground to see the four leaf clovers.

 

/

 

“I’ll hand you this coffee only if you promise not to throw it in my face,” Melkor said, and Mairon uncertainly looked up.

“Is it green?” he asked, voice tinged with venom.

“No, but I drew a clover on the foam,” Melkor admitted, with no small amount of pride. He tended to brag of his skills; insisted he’d make a splendid barista on the off-chance that money would run out and he’d be forced to get a part time job in the Hobbit Hole’s stuffy kitchen.

Mairon promised not to overreact and took the mug. The clover was impressive, but didn’t do a great job of mellowing his rage.

“Is this about your pride?” Melkor finally asked, sitting down beside Mairon, cross-legged. “Is this a pride thing? Or vanity? I mean, leprechauns aren’t known for their dashing looks, as far as I know. So, that could be the source of your — displeasure.”

 _Displeasure_ , because outright saying _hissy fit_ to Mairon’s face wasn’t the best game plan.

The coffee was as good as it smelled. Small mercies. Mairon reckoned he could overlook the derogatory foam art.

“Perhaps — ” he started. “Maybe I just don’t like being called names.”

Melkor scoffed, a low sound in the back of his throat. “I call bullshit.”

Mairon raised a challenging eyebrow and Melkor offered him a quick, one-shouldered shrug in return.

“Please. Fingon, just last week, called you a very inventive combination of curses I would not dare to repeat, and you merely laughed in his face.”

“Yes, and then I pulled a few strings and changed his Facebook status to single, created a rift in his idyllic love life, and got Maedhros to _actually_ break up with him for two whole weeks.”

“How — ?”

“Maedhros left his phone behind when he bolted home after the lawn incident. I took a few liberties, got my silent revenge. And that’s the difference. I got my damn revenge.”

“You don’t always need _revenge_ ,” Melkor said, pronouncing the word with all the bombastic emphasis Mairon had previously used.

Mairon glowered at him. “You’re one to talk, _oh dark one_.”

Melkor turned and plucked Mairon’s mug from his grasp, setting it down on the coffee table. He then took Mairon’s smaller hands in his own and squeezed, looking up at him with genuine concern.

“If this is an ego thing, I can assure you you’re far lovelier than those tiny Irish buggers. If not, and it’s to do with your undying hatred for everyone on this planet, I can only hope you’ll understand they’re just trying to get on your nerves. Trying to belittle you, when you’re obviously better in every aspect. Don’t let them get to you, lest you snap and murder half the town.”

“I wouldn’t _murder_ them.”

Melkor tsked. “Don’t mortally wound anyone either.”

“I can’t make that promise.”

“Just try,” Melkor insisted. “I’m going to shower. See you around, Patrick.”

He sidestepped before Mairon could bodily lunge at him and tear his throat out with his bare hands.

 

/iii./

 

Any time the doorbell would ring on Halloween, followed by some hurried knocking and children’s gleeful hoots resounding outside, Mairon would just burrow deeper under the covers and pretend not to hear.

Children were a nuisance, more so than all other life forms.

 

/

 

“I don’t get it,” Thuringwethil admitted. Her tone was fairly genuine. “You two are _The Nightmare on Elm Street_ incarnate. Nightmares, plural. How can you possibly hate Halloween? I can’t fucking fathom.”

This confrontation, a carefully planned intervention, originated from Thuringwethil’s own passion for giving out candy and dressing like someone they’d burn at the stake back in the Middle Ages. It was her lifeblood, her one true calling, the one day a year she could dress like a damned witch and _not_ get weird looks for it, for a change.

She and Ungoliant both. It was awful, and Mairon wanted no part in it.

“I’d rather get mauled half to death by a vicious wolf than willingly put up with kids, thanks,” he concluded, and earned himself a dirty look.

“Set a bowl up on the porch, then,” Thuringwethil offered. “No one’s gonna have at it with your doorbell if they find what they’re looking for at the bottom of the steps.”

Mairon scrunched up his nose. “Look, I appreciate the help, but no. I don’t want children anywhere near the house,” he insisted, “especially the little screaming ones. It drills a hole in my brain. Why should I let anything dressed like an elf near my home, my _sanctuary_ , where I retreat for peace and quiet, drill a literal hole in my brain?”

“It’d probably help if your place didn’t look like the dictionary entry for _haunted house_.”

And that was the end of that friendly talk.

 

/

 

“The folks at work organized a party in the office.”

Mairon looked up when Melkor spoke, eyebrows raised.

“Why am I not surprised.”

“Do you want to — ”

“ _No_.”

 

/

 

“Your girlfriend was right,” Melkor said later, when they were cooped up in their bedroom, inside a half-assed pillow fort atop the bed, _Sinister_ playing on the laptop between them. It wasn’t nearly terrifying enough for the occasion as either of them had anticipated.

Mairon gaped. “My _who_?”

“We have a reputation,” Melkor continued, neglecting to elaborate on the cheeky comment. Mairon just glared. “We’re scary. We could play that up, freak the legitimate shit out of those gremlins that come knocking for candy.”

“That would require effort. And clothes. Do you really want to put on clothes right now?”

“I mean next year, not now. It’s two in the morning, the town is sleeping.”

Mairon let out a puff of breath and leaned back onto the pillows.

“I wouldn’t know. I tuned everything out the moment I heard the first _trick or treat_ ,” he sighed, enunciating the last part in a twisted mockery of a child’s voice. There was hatred, and then there was Mairon’s feelings towards children — a thousand times as intense, a burning rage fueled by the very existence of anyone under four feet.

“Think about it,” Melkor insisted, snapping the laptop shut. The film was boring, Hollywood could do better. Hell, the two of them could do better. “Next year. We dress up the front lawn. Full entertainment industry-level graveyard freak show splurge. With special effects — give our lovely dilapidated mansion the treatment it deserves. You don’t even have to leave the bed; we’ll hire some cronies to jump out of coffins and give the kids a proper heart attack.”

Mairon was pursing his lips, fighting against the smile that threatened to break through onto his face. The idea seemed compelling enough, and the mischievous sparkle in Melkor’s eyes was nothing if not alluring.

“Though, I suppose, if we put in that much work, you might want to see it all go down — the kids screaming in terror rather than excitement for once,” Melkor went on. “Close your eyes and imagine: you don a nice, soft bathrobe; sipping on some fancy wine, staring out the window at the chaos you created.”

Mairon found himself leaning in towards the words and their magnetism; inch by inch, closing the space between them.

“Picture all those unsuspecting people running for their lives, tripping over one another as they scream to the unhearing skies above. The battlefield will be a scene of constant chaos. And the winner, my love, will be the one who controls that chaos,” Melkor delivered his closing statement, words barely above a whisper. “ _You_.”

Their lips brushed, Mairon’s fingers tracing the arch of Melkor’s cheek, burying in his hair as he longed for _more_.

“Are you really quoting Bonaparte at me?”

“Didn’t think you’d notice.”

“Please, you’re not that inventive.”

“Just wanted to impress you.”

Mairon grins against Melkor’s lips, lascivious and wicked.

“Impress me, then.”


	14. Convince Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which everything is almost the same, except Arda is a small suburban town in the middle of nowhere and everyone's favorite dark lords are that weird, annoying couple that live in the old, haunted looking house down the road.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mairon's transition from playing aulë's golden boy to going to work full-time for melkor is a lot less dramatic when no one has godly powers or dark fortresses, it seems
> 
> _timeline: around 1 year after first meeting_

They were in the shady dive bar, the same one that’d once served as the backdrop for their first date, when Melkor popped the question. Not _the_ question, per se, it was far too early for that. And both would loudly object to calling any of their get-togethers dates, because they weren’t eight graders and it wasn’t puppy love.

Instead, it was a question of a more professional category.

Namely: “I think you should come work for me,” Melkor said, looking down into the amber abyss of his scotch glass. The words came out partly unbidden, a sort of impulse, tongue loosened by sweet talk and spirits.

Mairon figured as much. “I already work for you.”

“I mean — ” Melkor paused, motioned vaguely with the hand that wasn’t wrapped in a vice grip around his glass, “ — what I mean is, I think you should quit Valinor altogether and join me.”

“You’re drunk.”

“I’m serious.”

“And drunk,” Mairon insisted. “What’s the use of having a man on the inside if the man is no longer on the inside?”

Melkor frowned and set his jaw. Despite his hard-trained liver and remarkable tolerance, he was four glasses in and struggling to get his sentences out in the correct order.

“I won’t need you —  _anyone_  — any spies — on the inside,” he explained. “Not if you’re actively working with me. There’s more we can achieve if we put our minds together, than if you just leak me leftover bits of Manwë’s files. Great minds — can do a lot of great together.”

“Very eloquent for a drunk man,” Mairon said to that, his own (first) drink barely halfway empty. “Appealing to my intellect like that. What’s next? My vanity?”

“Wouldn’t want to encourage your ego,” Melkor countered swiftly, and drained the remainder of his whiskey in one tip of the glass.

The bustle of the bar drowned out the silence between them. Someone, no doubt Eöl, was wailing at the bartender to take pity and pour him another beer, regardless of his indebted tab and empty pockets. The old man didn’t know when to quit.

“I don’t think I can do that,” Mairon decided.

Melkor snapped back to attention and furrowed his brows at the unexpected reply.

“Why?”

“Think about it. You’re smart,” Mairon went on, his words sprinkled with just enough flattery to stay on the good side of someone with a quick temper and scotch fuddled mind. “This is my ass on the line. If I hand in my two weeks’ notice, then immediately come aboard as your — whatever position you want to give me, we’ll get back to that — then your dear brother will most definitely smell a rat, and I’ll be in over my head.”

“He won’t do anything.”

“Corporate espionage. Sabotage. Double agent status. Millions of dollars lost in transactions that never quite saw the light of day. I can be charged with any of that, should he get his hands on the proof. And then he doesn’t even have to do anything. One call to security is all it would take, then the police arrive, and I’m history.”

Melkor didn’t seem convinced. “He wouldn’t arrest you.”

“No? He doesn’t particularly like _you_. I daresay if he found me on your payroll he’d have a hard time containing his anger. He’d flip a desk, or something.”

“It’s a heavy desk,” Melkor mused.

“How the hell do you even know that?” Mairon pondered aloud. “Have you actually tried to flip his — ” a pause, then: “Actually, no. Let’s not get into that. Please understand my concerns when I say I don’t want to end up with my ass in jail for any period of time.”

Melkor cocked his head to the side, looking off at some distant point across the room. His eyes were growing unfocused, ice blue and foggy in the dim lighting.

“Shouldn’t have done all those naughty things, then.”

Mairon’s eyes widened perceptibly, flashing with unadulterated surprise at the bold comment.

“Are you serious?”

“Well, you did — ”

“Well, I did. I did do it,” Mairon interrupted. “And I did it for you, asshole.”

After that, he fell quiet, as did Melkor; the silence punctuated with naught more than deep breaths and periods of elongated staring. It hadn’t been Melkor’s intention to offend, and Mairon hadn’t meant to fire back as harsh.

“Fuck,” Melkor said, very articulately, after a moment. “’M sorry.”

“Why are you drinking so much?” Mairon asked right after.

“You know — I’m not too sure.”

“Don’t do it again. You’re no lightweight, but even you have your limits.”

“You’re a lightweight.”

“That’s beside the point,” Mairon snapped, because it was beside the point. “The truly relevant matter is who you want me to be in your little game. Which of all those prestigious positions are you going to give me?”

Melkor smiled at the indulgence, roguish and slightly lopsided.

“Whatever you want,” he offered.

Mairon mirrored his grin. “Oh, really? Anything I want? CEO, then. You step down and I take charge of the well-oiled machine you’ve created.”

A beat passed, then another, and Melkor’s frown suggested he wasn’t quite sure if Mairon’s suggestion was legitimate.

Mairon took pity on him. Eventually. “I’m only joking. No worries. Right hand man is fine. I rather like working from behind the curtain, not as the figurehead.”

“Good to hear that’s settled.”

Mairon hummed in disagreement, a low sound in the back of his throat, before he knocked back the rest of his own drink. A tsk, then: “I never said I’d do it.”

“You did too.”

“ _’You did too?’_  What are you, four? I never said I’d do it now, immediately. Just because you offer me a nice paycheck doesn’t change the fact that I land myself a one way ticket to prison if I don’t think this through to the last detail.”

“Not only am I offering you a brilliant job, but a — brilliant night. Tonight. And every night. _Deal breaker_.”

“Now that just makes you sound like a desperate hooker,” Mairon pointed out. “You couldn’t resist me if you tried, darling, no matter who I work for. And don’t bother with the dirty talk; you’re too wasted to get your cock out of your trousers at this point.”

“Please.”

“Not now. Next quarter. I put some time between jobs, make it look like I got a better offer. No one will get suspicious, and I won’t be wearing orange in a cell — it is _not_ my color.”

“That’s such a long wait,” Melkor countered, in a manner akin to a childish whine. He was a mouthful of liquor away from sobbing on the floor.

“It’ll be worth the wait,” Mairon assured him. “Until then, keep your fingers crossed that Manwë doesn’t prematurely blow my cover for me.”

Taking the instructions literally, Melkor raised both hands above the table, two thumbs up. “Good luck to you, my deceiver.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“My undercover spy, doing battle in the shadows.”

“This is reaching a whole new level of pathetic.”

“God, you love me.”

Mairon scoffed. “I do, which is why we’re taking your ass home now. Come on.”

“My hero.”

“ _Shut up_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hmu [@ twitter](https://twitter.com/finaIizer)


	15. Lost to Weakness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which everything is almost the same, except Arda is a small suburban town in the middle of nowhere and everyone's favorite dark lords are that weird, annoying couple that live in the old, haunted looking house down the road.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _timeline: around 7-8 years after first meeting_

“That sounds like a you problem.”

And it was, in fact, a Melkor problem.

“No,” Melkor insisted, “it’s an _us_ problem. Because legally, according to the law, given the legal nature of our relationship, any problem that concerns one of us, concerns both of us.”

“Yeah, that’s not how it works.”

Mairon was having a hard time keeping a straight face as he moved from corner to corner, tidying up his personal space as he listened to Melkor drone on about his concerns. He couldn’t waste precious time sitting and discussing the subject like the latter had suggested, because work had to be done, and Melkor was simply being downright ridiculous.

“Right,” came the desperate reply, “okay. Then, if legal grounds don’t apply, I can at least try to appeal to your humanity. Compassion. If there is a single empathetic bone in your body, let it come forth. It can’t possibly be in line with your morals to let me suffer.”

Mairon dusted his bedside table for the fourth time in the span of an hour — perfection had no boundaries. “I have no morals,” he said.

He straightened up and turned, walking straight into a towering Melkor, who was suddenly very close, and looming very menacingly.

“Yes?” he prompted.

“Please,” Melkor begged, “do this for me. I won’t survive on my own.”

Mairon tried and failed to push past, but cornered between the edge of the bed and Melkor’s broad frame, he had no means of escape. There was something to be said for tactic, and Mairon cursed himself for failing to notice he’d walked right into that trap.

Like any intelligent individual would do in such a position, he used his words.

“Now, don’t be a wuss.”

 

Perhaps, a crucial component would be the relevant backstory:

Melkor’s family — wealthy, influential, and far too numerous — had decided to hold a gala. Some opulent, bowties required event that Melkor had no intention of attending if he had to attend alone. But Manwë had insisted, time and time again, that it’d be lovely to see his brother, and when asking nicely didn’t quite get the desired result, he’d said that Melkor’s absence would generate a whirlwind of gossip. And Melkor didn’t particularly like gossip, predominantly the kind that tarnished his good name. Though even more than that, he disliked the idea of going alone — he’d made the mistake of procrastinating, waiting until the last minute to ask Mairon to accompany him, and was now forced to resort to desperate measures.

 

Therefore: 

“I need backup,” Melkor tried to reason. “I’m fine on my own, you know that, but what’s a public event without my right hand man at my side?”

“How is that meant to appease me?”

Melkor frowned.

Mairon elaborated. “Right hand man? You perceive me as your inferior? I thought that only extended to _work_ , you old romantic.”

The words were obviously enough a joke, but Melkor panicked. He’d come close to breaking Mairon’s stubborn shell before, and he could do it again. So long as he played the right angles and pushed the right buttons, dished out the perfect amounts of flattery and humility.

He snatched Mairon’s hands in his own before Mairon could twist away and scramble across the bed to make a daring escape.

“You know I would do anything for you, right?” he asked quietly. He looked down at Mairon, head bowed.

The clear blue puppy eyes seemed to be working for an infinitesimal second, then Mairon cocked his head in contempt and let out a scornful scoff.

“I appreciate that, Melkor, really,” he began, a genuine gravity to his tone, “but — ”

Melkor’s face fell.

“ — in case you’ve forgotten, I’m not on Manwë’s good side. Nor Aulë’s. None of theirs, really. Even Varda stares at me like I’m something she’d pulled off the sole of her boot. I helped you cheat them, I lied to their faces, and put on a pretty façade as I wrecked their work to profit yours.”

“Life goes on,” Melkor interrupted. “They’ve forgotten.”

“If Manwë’s anything like you, he hasn’t forgotten,” Mairon snapped back. “They’ll treat you with civility because you’re family. I don’t have that luxury.”

“ _Now_ , legally — ” Melkor tried, and trailed off when Mairon’s warning glare burned a tad too bright.

“You said you would do anything for me. So, indulge me, and let me watch Netflix in my pajamas as you party it up with the elite of Arda.”

Melkor’s lips twisted down, as if to pout, and froze halfway. He stared down at Mairon, slightly frowning, raking his gaze across Mairon’s face.

Then, he pushed.

And Mairon’s legs, pressed up against the edge of the bed, could no longer hold his weight. He tumbled back into a half-sitting position atop the sheets and glowered up at Melkor, who had the gall to smirk.

“That’s not fair,” Mairon said, when Melkor remained silent. The silence grew tense, accentuated by naught more than breaths. Breathe in, breathe out. In. Out. Then Melkor dropped to his knees between Mairon’s spread legs. Mairon grimaced. “That’s definitely not fair. That’s not how adults argue.”

Not exactly having arguing in mind, or talking of any sort, Melkor decided on a last-minute change of action, and leaned up to push Mairon back onto the bed, climbing over him and hovering mere inches above his face.

“Come with me,” he repeated, as if that would work.

“No,” Mairon whispered back, “it’s still a stupid idea.”

Melkor closed the short distance between them and kissed him. Once, twice; brief pecks punctuated by Mairon’s refusals.

“Still stupid.”

 _Kiss_.

“Idiotic.”

 _Kiss_.

“Suicidal.”

Melkor leaned in one last time, then pulled away with a frown. “So, there’s nothing I can do to get you on my side?”

“I am on your side,” Mairon muttered, “but I’m also on the side of reason.”

Melkor huffed and brought one hand up to brush Mairon’s hair out of his eyes, fingers trailing lightly across his cheek. The other hand went elsewhere entirely, toying with the hem of Mairon’s shirt before dipping even lower.

Again, “Come with me,” Melkor insisted, close enough for Mairon to feel his breath hot against his lips.

His fingers slipped under the waistband of Mairon’s trousers and went lower still. Wholly involuntarily, Mairon arched up towards his touch, and hated himself for it, but couldn’t resist. All the blood in his body was directing itself downward at an alarming pace, and he could see by the dilation of Melkor’s pupils that the reaction was mutual.

And inconsistently, a painful contradiction, he tilted his chin upwards and met Melkor’s lips all too chastely, before pulling away and dropping back onto the sheets with a decisive, “No.”

There were two ways the situation could have escalated: either Mairon gave in to Melkor’s proposition and everyone’s clothes came off, or Melkor disregarded his goal for the time being and everyone’s clothes came off anyway.

Yet, none of that happened. It was the day of iron resolve, of no surrender.

Melkor tore himself away — took his hands off Mairon, as much as he loathed to do so — sliding off the edge of the bed, and taking a few steps away. He examined the crumpled sheets, Mairon’s scowl at being left (visibly) hot and bothered. The death glare plainly intensified when Melkor spread his arms in a display of mock-reluctance.

“No deal, then,” he sighed. It hurt him more than it hurt Mairon, no doubt, because he was awful at resisting the soft touches and hoarse whispers that Mairon had mastered and loved to use against him.

Though, it was only temporary, he reckoned, since he was on the right track towards triumph, and Mairon’s composure was cracking with every ticking second.

Mairon set his jaw, fingers tightening against the sheets he was gripping, and he sucked in a steadying breath. Melkor pursed his lips and held his gaze, counting down to victory.

Then, as soon as it began, it was over. He’d won.

Mairon slumped in defeat. “Fine. You’re right.”

Melkor, delighted, crossed his arms over his chest, in what he thought was a display of self-assuredness. Some things were irresistible, no matter the price one had to pay to get them. Melkor was one of those things.

And so, it was an especially nasty surprise when Mairon continued his reply.

“As you said, no deal,” he went on, pushing himself up with his elbows. He sat up, tying the drawstring of his pants back up from where Melkor had managed to undo it one-handed.

Melkor watched, appalled, his arms having fallen to his sides, as Mairon got off the bed and brushed past him with airy nonchalance. It was forced, of course, because neither could ignore the tension. It was a dark day indeed when sheer stubbornness outweighed the magnetic lure of skin on skin, the promise of something far more satisfying than frowning at each other from opposite ends of the room.

And as much as Melkor wanted to uphold his side of the bargain, keep his hands to himself until Mairon gave in and agreed to go with him to the damned banquet, some things proved impossible.

He stalked up to Mairon and caught his wrist before he could leave the room, tugging him back to where it all began and pushing him flat on his back onto the mattress. He so loved his indulgences, and sacrificing a family dinner in exchange for the expanse of copper hair splayed on his bed may have been more than worth it.

“Little bastard,” Melkor grit out, leaning over Mairon yet again, this time with no intention of relenting until they were both thoroughly exhausted and in no mood to ever get up again.

Mairon grinned against his lips, wrapping both hands around Melkor’s neck, tangling his fingers in the ink-black hair. They were both obstinate, and reveled in being difficult to inconvenience the other, but Mairon was temptation personified and Melkor was far from impervious to his charm.

Each kiss was fueled by more fervor, and hardly a minute passed before the inconvenience of clothes was removed. Not quite according to plan, but neither was complaining.

“Wicked creature,” Melkor hissed, because he’d lost; and the only thing making it worth it was the rewarding heat of Mairon against him. Being entirely at Mairon’s mercy — a daunting concept, for all intents and purposes.

“Don’t go,” Mairon insisted. “Fuck them. They don’t deserve to be in your presence.”

“I thought the idea was to fuck _you_.”

“Very witty — ”

Mairon tried to fire back a clever reply but failed to hold back a groan as Melkor’s fingers trailed down to their point of interest.

“ — just don’t go,” he managed. “Stay with me.”

“A compelling counteroffer,” Melkor mused.

“Isn’t it?”

“Fine,” Melkor bit out. And that settled the topic. “So much for all the theatrics.”

Mairon agreed, “Entirely unnecessary.”

 

There were six missed calls from Manwë the next morning, and a disappointed text from Varda, who’d hoped to have disgraced Melkor in a very public setting. She’d never before missed an opportunity to remind the masses that she’d turned Melkor down before marrying his brother. Perfectly hilarious.

Mairon, still snuffling into his pillow, was completely oblivious to the whole thing; while Melkor leaned over and grabbed his phone. He deleted all the voicemails, sent Varda a curt response consisting solely of the middle finger emoji.

He’d learned the moral of last night’s exchange, as Mairon had so eloquently phrased it.

_Fuck them._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tweet me stuff [@ finaIizer](http://www.twitter.com/finaIizer) i'm literally never free from this hell trust me


	16. A Lesson In Ownership

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which everything is almost the same, except Arda is a small suburban town in the middle of nowhere and everyone's favorite dark lords are that weird, annoying couple that live in the old, haunted looking house down the road.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [local hermit writer emerges from swamp after a year long absence] sup
> 
> _timeline: around 11 years after first meeting_

The old sayings spoke of the calm before a storm: the darkened skies, the deathly stillness of the air, palpable tension before the first drops of rain hit.

But nowhere did these tales mention the calm _after_ a storm: the dizzy haze, the bleary eyes, the dull throb of one’s skull —

— _right_. The storm, in this case, referring to a fourth of July boozefest, and the calm to the hangover that followed. 

Mairon wasn’t one to wallow in self pity, and made the best of a terrible situation. With his coffee at his side, and his current read, namely _How To Take Over The World Without Leaving Your House_ , he laid back on the sunbed in the backyard and focused all his energy on pushing back the nausea nagging at him from the pit of his stomach. 

The ten o’clock sun wasn’t nearly as scorching as it would be in the hours that followed and Mairon reveled in it, taking in every blissful second before his ginger nature betrayed him and allowed him to burn alive.

Wolf, ever so loyal, made himself comfortable in the grass in the subtle shade the sunbed cast. Mairon tried not to mind. The dog’s incessant tail wagging was disproportionally irritating to Mairon’s aching temples, because he was a lightweight who’d had one scotch too many the previous night, no thanks to Melkor and his bad influence. Still, Mairon loved Wolf more than any other sentient being, more than his husband, and didn’t have the heart to tell him to bugger off and be noisy elsewhere. 

Besides, the company was pleasant — Melkor had disappeared into the master bathroom at an unholy hour in the morning and had not emerged since, thus Mairon could not count on his companionship any more than he could count on Fëanor minding his own business for one day in his life. Not that he hated solitude, he genuinely preferred it; but he’d grown familiar with either the dog or Melkor bustling about every minute of every day, and it didn’t sit well with him when things grew _too_ quiet.

Of course, as fate would have it, the moment Mairon flipped another page — movements graceful and slow like a calculating fairytale villain — and well and truly began to appreciate being alone with his book, there came a telltale crash from inside the house, followed by a yelped cuss word and the back door being yanked open. 

Melkor stepped onto the porch with a sheet mask on.

Mairon bit back his disappointment at being interrupted and slid a bookmark in place. Only heathens bent the book pages to mark their progress. Yes, Melkor was one of the aforementioned heathens.

“Everything alright?” Mairon asked. 

Melkor tilted his head in question as he stepped down onto the grass, then remembered the crash and followed up with a self-mocking, “ _Oh_. Stubbed my toe on the desk in the office, coffee cup fell from the edge. T’was empty. But it smashed. It was the _wish you were here_ one from Minnesota. Good riddance.”

“Bard got that as an act of goodwill. Extending an olive branch. And you still refuse to babysit Tilda.”

Melkor took offense. “Why would I? And why would anyone in their right mind willingly _want_ to leave their kids with me? Us. Either of us.”

Melkor was seemingly awake enough to engage in a full length conversation, which marked the definitive end of Mairon’s morning relaxation time. Mairon set the book down and swung his legs over the edge of the seat, but didn’t stand — that was still too exerting a task to tackle. 

“You’re good with children,” Mairon offered, because that was the truth. He ran his hands through his hair to comb it into shape and tried not to wince at the realization that a good five inches were missing. He’d cut it to shoulder length to combat the unbearable heat and it took far too much getting used to. 

Melkor’s wild mane, however, was tangled in something resembling a knot at the back of his head, still laced with twigs and leaves from when they’d laid on the lawn to watch fireworks the previous night. 

He didn’t move closer, though Mairon was now occupying only half of the sunbed, with plenty room left over for a second person.

“You have seen me interact with exactly _one_ child, if we don’t count the redhead brat we almost dangled off the roof,” Melkor countered, “and it was an honest miracle Manwë’s damn baby didn’t start crying in my lap.”

Mairon sighed, and delivered the closing statement. “Because you’re good with kids. What’s up with the, um — ” he trailed off, motioning at the strange accessory on Melkor’s face.

Blue eyes snapped up, Melkor assessing whatever Mairon meant as his exhausted brain struggled to keep up with him. Right, the face mask. 

“You were out cold by three after your last shot, and I was stuck staring at the ceiling for another two hours because some bastard decided to shoot off every last firework he could find within a ten mile radius. I can’t prove it, but I _know_ it was Maeglin. Then, I woke up at five thirty, because the sun came up,” Melkor explained, pausing to motion at his own horror-esque appearance. “I’m making up for lost beauty sleep.”

Mairon’s expression softened, either with genuine affection or pity at Melkor’s plaguing insomnia. “You’re always gorgeous.”

Wolf chose that moment to cockblock and padded up to Melkor, sniffed one hand, then the other, earning himself a dismissive rub behind the ears. The dog was almost exclusively Mairon’s — his housemate of choice, his preferred significant other — and Melkor was merely a guest in his own home. His continued presence was up to Wolf’s mercy. Thus: the placating fur ruffle.

Satisfied, Wolf scampered away in search of his water bowl. The temperature was growing intolerable, the entire town caught in the midst of a stifling heatwave.

Mairon watched him go, then screwed his eyes shut as another wave of dizziness washed over him in all its gut wrenching glory. He was _not_ going to throw up. 

“Are you not hungover?” he asked Melkor after a while, as the man in question continued to exhibit exactly zero symptoms of anything resembling a headache. 

“I don’t get hungover. I’m unstoppable. But I _am_ tired. I’d like to keel over and sleep before ten tonight but knowing me, I’ll lay awake till the crack of dawn and curse the chirping birds.”

With that, Melkor finally sat beside Mairon. 

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Mairon put the pieces together, suspecting that it was Wolf’s presence that stopped Melkor from doing so before. Truth be told, it was a clever decision: the dog never did react too happily at anyone sitting closer to his master than himself.

Not that the current situation was any better — the proximity and Melkor’s general disregard for good posture (hence: legs spread like it was nobody business) made for unbidden, inappropriate thoughts. Mairon forced those damn ideas away before they got the better of him. 

“Not to state the obvious, not to repeat myself for the thousandth time, but do try not to drink so much coffee.”

“I’ll be a zombie.”

Mairon huffed and reached over to peel the accursed mask off Melkor’s face. The skin underneath was almost translucently pale.

“You already are. Try a few days without guzzling thirty cups and you’ll pass out soon enough. You’ll sleep for a week and you’ll be back on your feet. Hopefully.”

Melkor’s gaze dropped to Mairon’s hands, fingers still wrapped around the mask, then flicked back up to his face. Continued exposure to the sun was resulting in freckles dusting over the bridge of his nose, and Melkor knew better than to comment on what Mairon considered an unfortunate weakness. He didn’t want to look _cute_. Dangerous and otherworldly threatening was more up his alley.

“Easy for you to say,” he said finally, absently running the pad of his thumb over Mairon’s cheek. His skin was hot to the touch, no doubt a moment away from a disastrous sunburn. “You sleep like the dead. The entire continent could collapse into the sea and you’d be snoring away.”

Mairon bristled, shaking Melkor’s hand off of him. “I don’t snore. And I prefer my apocalyptic visions without abnormally huge bodies of water, thank you.”

Melkor hummed in disagreement. The occasional snuffling sounds _did_ too count as snores.

The pause extended, Mairon’s frown creasing lines into his forehead. The slightest insinuation that anything about him was less than perfect was enough to spur an existential crisis.

Eventually, Melkor huffed a sigh. “It’s impossible to glare at you when you look like that.”

“Look like what?”

Melkor waved both palms in vague circles before Mairon’s face to try and capture the gist of what he was attempting to convey, then settled for softly cupping Mairon’s face in his hands. He could get very affectionate when sleep deprived, and not only then. Lucky for him, he was the only human on the planet whose touch Mairon not only tolerated but flat out craved. 

“Ethereal,” Melkor finally declared. He dropped his hands but held Mairon’s gaze. “Your beauty is dangerous.”

A soft smile cut through Mairon’s affront at the snoring comment, but was quickly concealed by a mischievous smirk.

“I know that, darling. How do you think I get those discounts at Whole Foods?”

Melkor’s hands stilled, and everything about him seemed to freeze. In a subtle way, but just enough for Mairon to know he’d succeeded in getting the right reaction. All it took was a few calculated words.

Melkor scoffed. “Do you truly flip your hair for every cashier you meet to get a few cents off your chia seeds? Bat your lashes? Hypnotizing golden winks for the barista to shave half the price off your mocha?”

Mairon knowingly kept his hands to himself. He knew just which cards to play to elicit the best reaction, what to say and how to say it. The more riled up he got Melkor, the more possessive Melkor got, and that resulted in the best sex. It was pure logic, really. “That almost sounded jealous,” he paused for dramatic effect when Melkor _glared_. “I promise you, I don’t get on my knees in the gas station bathroom when my card gets declined and I’m in a rush to get moving.”

“I’m aware. You wouldn’t stoop so low.”

“And yet the mere thought got your blood boiling.”

Melkor bit his bottom lip to keep his laugh from escaping his throat. Just as Mairon knew which buttons to press, Melkor knew well enough when those buttons were being pressed. If Mairon wanted to fuck, he could have just said. The thing about him, though, was the foreplay was almost exclusively verbal. He had a talented tongue, in more ways than one. 

“You’re _mine_ , Mairon. Excuse me if the thought of anyone else’s hands on you doesn’t sit well with me.”

Mairon grimaced in a way that could only be described as a good ol’ sarcastic _well, whoops_ expression.

“Then you’re going to have to have a talk with my hairdresser. The girl who does my brows, too. And when I was fitted for the suit last winter — that guy had his hands all over me, if I recall correctly. The doctor, too, at my last checkup: poking and probing — ”

Melkor grasped Mairon’s hands before he ran out of fingers to count on. 

“I get it. You want _my_ hands on you. Could’ve just said.”

“Where’s the fun in that? Would’ve missed you getting all exited.”

“I thought you were hungover,” Melkor reminded him.

“I can make an exception,” Mairon insisted.

“You can — you’re gonna put your hangover on hold to go fuck?”

Mairon scoffed and hastily gestured at Melkor’s chest. “You come out here in nothing but those pajama bottoms — the thin ones, may I add, that conceal _nothing_ — and you stand over there like a fucking Greek statue and the sun falls _just right_ , and you expect me not to get hard?”

“We’ve been married nearly ten years, Mairon,” Melkor pointed out.

“ _Oh_ , it doesn’t get old,” Mairon muttered. His words were rushing, the tension growing hot. “It never gets old. You want straightforward — fine, have it: please, take me upstairs and fuck me like your life depends on it.”

Melkor leaned in close enough for Mairon to feel the warmth of his breath. He smelled like his damned espressos, of course. “Promise you won’t exchange sexual favors with your tailor and we’re good to go.”

“At this point you could ask anything of me and I’d agree so long as we’re both out of our clothes within the minute.”

“Promise you’re mine.”

“You know I am.”

“Promise you won’t cut your hair again.”

“Melkor, the fact that I’m emotionally invested in what’s in your pants does not give you autonomy over what I choose to do with my hair. But for the time being,” Mairon added impatiently, halfway in Melkor’s lap already, greedy hands in pitch black hair, “I promise. _Anything_.”

“Now, that’s what I like to hear.”

 

And as the old sayings went, the rest was history.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> holler at me: [twitter](http://www.twitter.com/finaIizer) & [tumblr](http://www.badspacedads.tumblr.com)
> 
> edit: can't believe phobs posted angbang art for the first time in ages the day i published this chapter. looks like a Revival


	17. Beginnings Part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which everything is almost the same, except Arda is a small suburban town in the middle of nowhere and everyone's favorite dark lords are that weird, annoying couple that live in the old, haunted looking house down the road.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter was actually the first scene i _ever_ thought out when i started planning this fic in early 2015 — god knows why it took me so long to finally put it into words
> 
> → probably the longest chapter yet, but we have a lot of ground to cover: we're diving into their first official date and (gasp) first kiss, after all
> 
> _timeline: around 3.5 months after first meeting_

Dates were nothing to fear: they weren’t job interviews — and if they did feel that way it was best to pack up one’s breadsticks and skedaddle out of the bar before bad turned to disastrous. In a worst case scenario, one could use the ol’ bathroom excuse and shimmy out of the window and run away via the back alley — Mairon knew that from experience.

And yet, he was nervous and he didn’t know why, which only freaked him out further. But Mairon was a logical, intelligent individual, and made the best of getting stuck at another traffic light: rationalizing why the hell his heart was pounding like that and why his hands felt clammy around the steering wheel.

The options were:

  1. He was going out with Melkor. _Again_. No, it wasn’t very formal — it was at the guy’s house, for crying out loud, but that implied a level of intimacy Mairon had no idea how to deal with. Still, that was a manageable situation. Which led him to:
  2. He was going out with _Melkor_. Specifically, doing so behind Manwë’s back. He was going to visit his _boss’_ _brother_ at his _home_ , in the evening. The implication that he wouldn’t be returning to his own apartment before sunrise hung heavy in the air.
  3. The city’s streets were actively working against him, stopping him at every light as he followed his GPS to the suburban shithole address Melkor had provided him. On the passenger seat laid a plastic bag filled with:
  4. Sushi. Which couldn’t grow cold, at least. Melkor had suggested he himself cook dinner (because he had a penchant for the culinary arts, apparently), but Mairon froze at the domesticity of the proposition (ok, he clearly had attachment issues), and insisted he would bring over sushi from the best joint the county had to offer. Even so, he was running late and it made for a bad impression.
  5. Not only that, but Mairon’s work day had been hell: an important contract with a development agency had fallen through and everyone had been on edge for hours, the tension in the building thick enough to slice with a knife. Mairon had spent half the afternoon irritably dragging his hands through his hair, and it’d arrived at the stage where he’d had no choice but to tie it up in a mess of a bun. Really — he wasn’t in the mood for romantic engagements, but he was too close to turn back; gas money and all that.



The light turned green and Mairon immediately floored the pedal, in hopes of finally passing the shabby, gray wreck of a car that’d opted for a glacial pace for the last mile and a half. He wasn’t exactly the best driver but he managed the maneuver without harming himself or the sushi in the process.

Blessedly, all it took was a few more twists and turns before he pulled into a side street leading into the most picturesque, quaint suburban utopia he’d even laid eyes upon. It was _hell._ The lawns were green, the curbs spotless, tress trimmed and houses in mint condition. There was a gathering of people in front of what appeared to be the local coffeeshop, smiling and chatting with their paper cups — _great_ , it was a social kind of street, where each and every inhabitant knew what their next door neighbor had for breakfast.

The house numbers were too low, though, and Mairon kept driving down the road until the perfect rows of houses became more sparse, the odd one showing up every once in a while until the lawns grew desolate, dotted with nothing but trees and overgrown shrubbery. And then, it came into view: 

The house itself was nothing like what he’d expected from Melkor — wealthy, _pristine_ Melkor — a mess of a mansion, dark and dreary, dilapidated beyond repair, and Mairon had no doubts it hadn’t been renovated since the damned Victorian era. And yet, the number on the door matched the pixels on his GPS.

He pulled into the driveway and absently collected the plastic bag from the passenger seat, and stepped outside. The slam of the car door nearly echoed in the emptiness — no other houses as far as Mairon’s eyesight reached, a variety of untamed trees twisting and winding about the house’s walls like malevolent guardians. It was the home of a storybook villain, and Mairon couldn’t help his humored huff of disbelief. Melkor was truly living up to the reputation Manwë had assigned him.

The other car parked in front of the house smelled of old money at least: a glossy black something or another that practically radiated dollar signs. Mairon was in over his head — getting in between Melkor and his brother, in the middle of a burning familial dispute and two towering piles of money that could topple over at any moment and bury him alive. 

If it’d been too late to turn back earlier, it was far past that opportunity now. Especially when the front door swung open and a familiar sheet of black hair billowed out with the wind.

“Are you going to stand there much longer,” Melkor asked, “admiring the rotting wood?”

The nervous anticipation reached a boiling point and Mairon shoved it back down before it resulted in giddy hysteria.

“It’s a really lovely shade of mold you’ve got there,” he said, gathering his wits and heading toward the open door, where his gracious host — _date_ — was patiently waiting. “Brings out your eyes.”

His quip resulted in a sharp smile from Melkor, and Mairon’s disobedient stomach did another flip. _Yes_ , this was probably the most beautiful man Mairon had ever met, and _no_ , this didn’t mean he’d give himself the permission to turn to jello before he even set foot inside the house.

Once he did, though, all reservations vanished — those he had about Melkor’s _lair_ , at least. It made perfect sense: keep the outside as shabby and unsuspecting as possible, and transform the inside into a loft worthy of a king. It was impressive beyond belief, and even more so practical. The haunted, abandoned exterior paired with Melkor’s unfriendly reputation made for the perfect reclusive hideaway, an off-road secret bunker no one would dare approach.

“Not bad, is it?” Melkor broke the silence, and Mairon blinked back into awareness, tearing his gaze away from the chrome finishings and French doors at the far end of the dining room. “Outside keeps the neighbors away.”

Mairon scoffed. “What neighbors?”

“May I?” Melkor interjected, motioning to the bag Mairon had brought. With it, he departed towards the kitchen, leaving Mairon to continue his ogling of the ebony flooring. “They drive by sometimes, the neighbors, in their family size minivans. Point is, they don’t stop, and that’s all that matters.”

Mairon made the tough call to stop admiring each fascinating quirk and detail about the room, lest he make the impression of a gold digger  desperate to worm his way into an affluent family. Not that the money wasn’t an added bonus, a pleasant side dish added to the main course of Melkor’s damn good looks and admittedly intriguing personality. All in all, _in over his head_ was a pretty apt definition. 

Not that Melkor was paying any attention, too preoccupied with assembling the contents of the plastic bag out onto one of the counters. 

“Go easy on me with the wine criticism,” Mairon said. “I was constrained by limited time and limited options, and needless to say financials. Hope it doesn’t offend your aristocratic palate,” he paused, then, “the dinner, however, I can vouch for. It’s good.”

Melkor smirked again, sharp and sarcastic. “Lucky sushi doesn’t need reheating. I would hate to have to tarnish it in the microwave.”

It was an obvious jab at Mairon’s tardiness.

“My apologies. I take full responsibility for the traffic and the road work on the 76.”

“As you rightly should,” came the reply, as Melkor emerged from the kitchen with two platters, and slid them onto the polished tabletop with an air of grace.

The churning butterflies made a comeback.

 

/

 

“You’re not boring,” Melkor decided, once his laughter had died down and the last words of Mairon’s latest workplace tale hung comfortably in the air. They’d relocated to the sofa with their wine some hours ago, full glasses in hand and the near empty bottle set on the coffee table. “Now, don’t take offense — I knew you’d be more than a paper pusher — ” he paused and frowned, trying to order the words he wanted to convey. “ — this keeps coming out wrong. You’re already offended, I can tell. Look, I know you don’t need my sugar coated words to validate you, you’re beautifully arrogant already — but what I’m trying to say is, how does someone like you end up working for someone like Manwë?”

Mairon raised an eyebrow. “ _Beautifully_ arrogant?”

It was to be expected, which word Mairon would latch on to. Melkor stood his ground. “Yes, _beautiful_. Answer the question.”

Mairon took a deep sip from his glass and cleared his throat. He’d never considered the reasons behind his decisions, let alone considered sharing them with anyone, and it startled him that he _wanted_ to divulge his heart and soul to the stranger seated beside him.

“I don’t know, really — the opportunities, maybe. The prestige. The order; everything seemed so collected there, at first. I wanted to be a part of something bigger, something new; I wanted to push myself and see how far I could go.”

Melkor let the words sit before commenting. “Doesn’t seem like it’s met your expectations.”

It took a moment for Mairon to consider the idea in pensive silence. Like the intelligent creature he was, it didn’t take too much thought to see through Melkor’s pretenses. 

“Are you trying to recruit me? I really prefer my social engagements without a side of business — ”

“ _No_ ,” Melkor interrupted, and there was a desperate edge to it. “No, no, no. See, now you’re offended again, and I’m clearly incapable of shutting my big mouth before I let slip something stupid. You seem unhappy there, is all I meant. Like you need something more exciting to make it all worthwhile.”

“Cliff jumping? Hopping onto the back of a stranger’s bike and riding off into the night? Thank you, really, but I’m fine sitting here, sipping my — ” he paused, glancing over at the bottle, “ — whatever I bought.”

“You picked a good one,” Melkor assured him.

Mairon nodded. “That means a great deal coming from you, _my lord_.”

There was something inherently _good_ about the comfortable silence, the casual quips and occasional hushes in conversation. There was no need to show off, to go astronomical lengths to impress the other, to act proper and polite in fear of rejection. There was a shared spark, Mairon could tell, something dark and glittering deep down, like metallic shards tearing towards each other in magnetic pulses. It all sounded hopelessly pathetic put into words — Mairon blamed the melodramatics on the wine and relentless butterflies.

But Melkor could see it too — a part of himself reflected in Mairon. The wine had loosened his rigid composure, added a flush to his cheeks and a glint to his gold eyes. He matched Melkor in humor and biting sarcasm, in his wickedly intelligent character and a sharp wit. Most of all, he saw his own _want_ reflected in Mairon’s gaze, and it was a feeling far from solely carnal. 

“You’re staring again,” Mairon said. 

“As are you.”

Mairon tilted his head in concession. “Pour me another one.”

“You sure? We worked out the hard way that you couldn’t hold your liquor,” Melkor reminded him, but reached for the bottle.

“That was vodka. From a dive bar.”

Melkor poured half the glass, cautiously continuing only when Mairon gave the universal gesture for _keep going_. It wasn’t an ideal concept, Mairon getting drunk again, like he had during their first _not_ -date. He’d called the number Melkor had slipped him during their initial _unorthodox_ encounter, and graciously accepted the daring invitation for drinks not long after. And he’d proceeded to drink himself under the table. Melkor had had the mind to chalk it up to nerves, though Mairon typically didn’t seem the type to chicken out of anything. A failed attempt at liquid courage, then.

“Exactly: from a dive bar. Watered down and twice the price. This time around, at least, you know you’re drinking what you paid for.”

The thinly veiled precaution didn’t stop Mairon from taking a very long, very deep gulp from his glass. It was empty by the time he finished his defiant display, and he discarded it in favor of tucking a few loose hairs behind his ears. He hardly seemed tipsy, let alone incoherent. 

All in good humor, Melkor carried on teasing. “Really, Mairon, you’ve already had too much to drive yourself home, and I certainly will not be giving you another lift.”

“Why ever not, Melkor?”

They were skirting around something bold and daunting, toying with the sound of each other’s names on their lips. It was a game of subtlety; without proper cautionary measures, one thing would lead to another, then another, and all hell would break loose in the form of rumpled bedding and rewarding bruises.

“Your dog scares me,” Melkor gave an honest answer. He set his glass down on the table and leaned back into the cushions.

“I rather think he likes you. He wasn’t nearly as amicable towards the last ma — _person_ to set foot in my apartment.”

The words struck a chord, the heavily implied meaning traitorously boiling Melkor’s blood without his permission. He already wanted this self-important, opinionated individual all to himself, and the single notion of another’s hands on him was suddenly too much to bear. And then he realized this had been the purpose of Mairon’s little linguistic error, to clear Melkor’s mind of every thought but one.

Ergo — the slip was hardly unintentional. Mairon’s roguish intent shone through the polite mask he’d arranged of his features. This was a master manipulator, a mischievous wolf in sheep’s clothing, who’d skimmed through each and every one of Melkor’s words, feelings, and micro-expressions and come up with the perfect tactic to wrap him around his finger. Melkor, of course, saw through it in time.

“You know, on second thought,” Melkor mused, “it would be a wise decision, businesslike or otherwise, to get you on my side. Charming veneer, immoral intellect. I could benefit from such attributes, while you could gain from joining the winning team.”

Melkor paused, letting Mairon think he’d miscalculated in driving Melkor’s thoughts into the gutter — just for a moment, letting him simmer, before delivering his closing statement.

“Tell me, do you really _want_ to go home tonight? Did you, for a moment, even consider that to be an option, driving up here? Everything you’re doing points otherwise.”

Mairon pursed his lips in mock surrender. “In hindsight, I think I did drink a little too much. If you have a spare room, or a couch I could crash on — ”

The last string of composure, thin and weary, snapped.

Melkor pushed forward and pressed his lips to Mairon’s with little finesse, bracing himself with one hand on Mairon’s cheek, fingertips pressing into the hollow of his jaw, to soften the impact. His other hand went straight to Mairon’s waist, fingers greedy and bruising, and the display was possessive enough for Melkor to have felt ashamed, had he not been too busy thinking of how perfect and plaint Mairon felt under him. 

Then Mairon smiled into the kiss, wrapping his hands around Melkor’s neck and tugging him even closer.

He pulled away enough to whisper, “There you are.”

Melkor huffed a breathless laugh. The proximity was exhilarating. “Was this your dastardly plan all along? You don’t seem like the type to put out on the first date.”

“ _Technically_ , not our first date.”

“Wicked creature.”

Mairon’s smile widened. “You wouldn’t have me any other way.”

And the penny dropped.

“I would have you,” Melkor said, hardly audible over the pounding hearts and labored breaths.

Mairon pushed his fingertips into Melkor’s hair at the base of his skull, rough and to the point, no room for negotiations and misinterpretations, and _tugged_. “Have me, then.”

 

/

 

Melkor woke to the agonizing sound of a blaring alarm — it was unusual enough to wake up in reaction to external stimuli rather than Melkor’s own inability to float in blissful unconsciousness for longer than four hours. And yet, there he was, grumbling incoherencies into his pillow, hair sticking out every which way as he rolled onto his back.

 _Right_. Mairon. The previous night. It explained the alarm that was most definitely not his own, as well as the unholy blaring at — what time was it? — six in the morning. Not that Melkor wasn’t used to waking up even earlier than that, but the alarm was new. It also explained the presence beside him, copper hair swaying across freckled shoulders as Mairon leaned over the side of the bed to blindly grope for his phone, which had been pleasantly discarded alongside his pants and the rest of his clothes not that many hours before.

One thing, however, was even more so unexpected than the comfortable warmth of the bed in the morning and Melkor surprisingly sleeping in for once. He hadn’t noticed it before.

“I hadn’t noticed that before,” Melkor apparently said out loud, because there was no such thing as a natural brain-to-mouth filter at this time of day. Melkor didn't acquire one of those until his second or third espresso.

The blaring stopped. 

Mairon groaned and dropped the phone back onto the carpeted floor, where it landed with a gentle but damning thud. He had about him the air of a man who had regrettably _not_ thumbed _snooze_ , rather made peace with the wholly awful realization that it was time to get up. After all, work was calling and appearances had to be kept up; Mairon hadn’t been late a day in his life and he most certainly did not need to get Manwë giving the matter more thought than it warranted. Which was none at all, for everyone’s sake.

“Noticed what?” he asked in a tired voice. He turned to face Melkor, propping himself up on his elbow to stay upright. It would do him no good to lay back down as minutes ticked by.

Melkor blearily blinked up at him. “The tattoo.”

Mairon’s forehead creased into the slightest of frowns, then it clicked, and he tilted his head in consideration. “You did have me on my back all night. Makes perfect sense you didn’t see it.”

“It’s nice.”

“I know that.”

“Arrogant bastard,” Melkor grumbled.

Mairon gave a one-armed shrug. “Is that the bathroom?” he asked offhandedly, nodding his head towards the opposite end of the room.

“What?”

“I said, is that the bathroom? I need to get going. It’s an even longer drive from here.”

Reality set in and Melkor was faced with the understanding that he had tragically little time left in Mairon’s presence before he packed up his perfect ass and glossy hair and skedaddled off to the office like the responsible worker bee he was. It was a harrowing thought — Mairon was meant for bigger things than stapling documents together for hours on end. 

Melkor nodded in reply, then sighed. “I’m guessing there’s nothing I can do to persuade you to stay?”

“Knock yourself out: weave me tales of all the things you would do to me if only I acquiesced. Won’t change the fact I’m already running late, or the fact that I don’t have a change of clothes, or the fact that I need to wash my hair before I set foot in public.”

Melkor laid back and enjoyed the view, as Mairon gathered his things and headed for the bathroom. He hated that Mairon had to leave, but _damn_ , he loved watching him go. 

“You don’t need any of that, you’re already perfect. Come back to bed.”

The faucet squeaked and Melkor heard the distinct sound of running water — the ginger bastard really was beyond stubborn, on top of being annoyingly and distressingly _responsible_. Melkor figured, had he been the one in Mairon’s current situation, he’d be right back under the covers in a heartbeat, getting his lips bruised with insistent kisses.

“If we’re going to make something of this,” Mairon’s voice rang out from the bathroom, “you’re gonna have to come up with more convincing compliments. It just won’t do calling me _perfect_.”

“Right, because you — ”

“ — know that already, yes.”

Melkor had half a mind to kick himself free of his sheets and make a run for the bathroom, plaster himself around Mairon from behind and kiss him senseless until he had no choice but to call in sick for work and spend the rest of the day in bed taking part in far more interesting activities.

Which was when the thought struck him — he wanted to keep this one around. He wanted to wake up at his side and pull him closer in the mornings as the sun rose and birds started their songs. He wanted to greet him every day as he came back from work, and listen to him bitch and moan about his day and all the incompetent underlings he had to manage. He wanted to hear his voice downstairs, screaming at him to make his lazy ass useful, to make him breakfast and coffee and serve it to him in bed, pepper him with kisses each time the opportunity arose, and —

 _Fuck_ , he was in love.

That most certainly was not how Melkor had anticipated to spend the morning, up to his neck in these kinds of revelations.

The shower in the bathroom shut off, the house’s old pipes grunting in response. Melkor had hardly even registered the passage of time.

Mairon called out again, “I’m using your towels. And I used your conditioner. And I’ll use your toothpaste too, I’m really desperate here.”

_Take it, take everything I have._

That, at least, Melkor managed not to say aloud. Instead, he said, calm and collected and not at all panicking, “Go for it.”

There was no easy way to assess how Mairon felt about the entire arrangement, or how much the time spent together meant to him. For all Melkor knew, the past evening could have been, in Mairon’s eyes, a one night stand, a quick fling, never to be heard of again. Which, naturally, just wouldn’t do.

The lights clicked off in the bathroom and Mairon stepped out, already dressed to the nines in the clothes from the previous day. He was attacking his damp hair with a towel, as if the harsher he rubbed at it, the faster it would dry. 

He didn’t seem all too pleased with that. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’ll have to leave it to air dry. I’m — I have to get going. No time for breakfast, I’ll grab coffee from that place I passed. Pity, really — I’d love to see your culinary prowess in person. Maybe next time.”

_That horrid, vain, arrogant, beautiful, self-important, wonderful, perfect, stubborn, impossible, unapologetic —_

“Are you even listening?”

Melkor blinked. “What?”

Mairon was suddenly at his side, crouching by the edge of the bed to meet Melkor at eye level. “I said, _oh scowling one_ , that I’d love to do this again sometime, regardless of how dangerously it threatens my career and upstanding morals.”

The second part was a blatant lie. Luckily, Melkor kept the teasing remarks to himself (for now).

“Do what again?” he asked instead. There was need for clarification. “Sex? Dinner? Taking an unsolicited shower in my bathroom?”

Mairon’s hand was suddenly at his jaw, pulling him into an oddly tentative kiss. Gone was the smug confidence from the night before — the discrepancy itched at Melkor, but he didn't comment.

Mairon was evidently struggling to piece his words together, hesitating before he spoke, however much he tried to pull off nonchalance.

“I’d love to see you again,” Mairon said simply, “whatever that entails. I’m — intrigued.”

“Oh, are you?” 

Melkor made an attempt at leaning in for another kiss, but Mairon rocked back on his heels, backing away just in time. He stood, and the growing distance between them physically ached.

“Very. Unfortunately, I’m also embarrassingly late. I’ll see myself out, sleeping beauty.”

Melkor dropped back down amidst his cushions.

“You do that.”

 

/

 

Mairon shot Melkor a look that promised a reckoning, glittering eyes and a vicious smile, all to mask the butterflies in his stomach. He shut the bedroom door behind himself and it took every ounce of sheer will he possessed not to sink to the ground in the corridor outside. There was something akin to adrenaline overpowering his senses — something so vivid and all-encompassing that everything else in the world paled in comparison.

Mairon wasn’t particularly well versed on the topic, but he knew it when he felt it. He balled his hands into fists to stop them from trembling, and forced himself to swallow down the giddiness rising at an alarming pace, wrapping its lovesick tendrils around him and threatening to coax him into a reality where he couldn't imagine a future without Melkor at his side.

It was too much to think about.

Time would tell, he told himself as he descended down the staircase, _time would tell_.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you SO MUCH to everyone who's dropped comments. y'all brought me back here
> 
> find me: [twitter](http://www.twitter.com/finaIizer) & [tumblr](http://www.badspacedads.tumblr.com)
> 
> ps. i wrote this whole thing to dua lipa's _hotter than hell_. it suits their dynamic tbh


	18. A Sweeter Life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which everything is almost the same, except Arda is a small suburban town in the middle of nowhere and everyone's favorite dark lords are that weird, annoying couple that live in the old, haunted looking house down the road.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if this fic wasn't a self-expanding monstrosity and had an actual ending, this chapter would be it — welcome to the wannabe epilogue
> 
>  **+** i wasn't gonna drop this for another week but i just realized today is the exact 2 year anniversary of this fic first being published aww
> 
> _timeline: around 11 years after first meeting, (somewhat) direct follow up to[chapter 16](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4641381/chapters/25633512)_

The heatwave gradually withered away, leaving behind dried up lawns and sticky humidity. Still, it was hot — not quite as deadly, but uncomfortable nonetheless.

The real problem was, however, that Melkor had been in the process of making himself an iced mocha when he realized the fridge was out of ice cubes and no one had refilled the dispenser. He then fumed to himself in grave silence, resisted the urge to kick a dent into the trash bin, and impatiently snapped at the dog when it looked up at him with a tilted head and questioning eyes.

He was just lucky Mairon wasn’t there to witness the last part. Crimes against humanity: sure, but crimes against canine friends: instant divorce.

With all other options exhausted, Melkor resorted to plan Z: yelling. 

“ _We’re going out._ ”

There was a thump from upstairs, then: “Since when?”

“Since we’re out of ice and I’m going to die.”

Melkor waited for an answer, partially expecting Mairon to holler down a dismissive ‘ _die, then._ ’ He leaned against the wall by the staircase, sighed in temperature-induced agony, and closed his eyes. He momentarily considered moving to Alaska or the Siberian tundra, or perhaps the nice and chilly bottom of the fucking ocean.

“Fine,” came the unexpected answer. “You’re paying.”

Melkor counted his blessings, and thanked the heavens and the aliens and all nearby deities that Mairon wasn’t back in one of his reclusive slumps. More often than not, he’d refuse to leave the house for days, holed up in the bedroom overdosing on paperwork or lighting up a few cigarettes in the yard, sitting on the porch for silent hours with only Wolf for company. 

What really mattered was that the moods were temporary, that all was still well between them after all the time they’d been together, and that Mairon was audibly coming down the stairs instead of whining at Melkor to order food to the house instead.

Melkor opened his eyes as Mairon stepped into the room, and the air was punched out of his lungs. Now, strictly speaking, it was downright _lame_ that Mairon still had that effect on Melkor, the same jaw-dropping, heart-stopping effect he’d had since the day they’d met. It was the smallest things that did it: a distinct smile, a new haircut, those barely noticeable mannerisms that made Mairon who he was. And Melkor _melted_.

“Stunner,” were the first words out of his mouth, impulsive and brutally honest.

Mairon paused. The comment came as a surprise to both of them, Mairon pushing back a rare blush, and Melkor reveling in the novelty of the situation. It was good to know there were still some things that could surprise them.

“It’s long enough to tie back now,” Mairon changed the topic, reaching back to wiggle his tiny half-up ponytail. “A little, at least. It kept falling in my eyes.”

“Should’ve considered that before you chopped it all off.”

Mairon’s eyes narrowed. “You said I looked good.”

“I said you always look good. Even now. _Especially now_ — look, I’m biased. Don’t ask me, I’m in love with you.”

Mairon opened his mouth as if in slow motion, gears turning to generate a response. Melkor’s weirdly affectionate compliments were short circuiting his brain. It was either that or the heat, but the latter was just a convenient excuse for when two heartless people grew to realize they weren’t as cold as they’d thought. 

“Sap,” he said finally. “Get in the car before you melt into a sappy puddle, sap.”

Melkor shrugged and pushed off the wall, shameless. “I can’t help it.”

“I love you too,” Mairon offered in return. It was pretty evident they were growing soft with age. “Your keys are on the counter,” he added, when Melkor had taken to blindly following him towards the front door in favor of getting his shit together.

“What can I say, you distract me.”

Mairon stared, amused. “What has gotten into you today?”

There were a few quiet seconds as Melkor pocketed his keys and slipped on some ratty flip-flops (because his hobo fashion was his own business and he’d rather not fry himself alive in expensive leather footwear). He then looked down at Mairon with a crooked, apologetic smile. 

“I snapped at the dog earlier. I was afraid he’d snitch on me, so I’m being nice to win back your favor in advance. Ready to go?”

 

/

 

“I prefer how it used to be,” Mairon mused aloud, frowning at the expanse of the room in front of them from above the lid of his (very icy, thank you very much) cold brew. 

They’d scared a lovey-dovey pair of kids from the furthest booth and claimed it as their own, living up to their notorious reputation and aggressively treasuring their privacy. As most sane individuals were clever enough to stay home with their AC on full blast, there weren’t too many people in the cafe, which was an added bonus. 

The downside, however, was the owner.

If one good thing had come of the passage of time, it was Bilbo’s miraculous realization that — _hey, what do you know_ , Thorin had a gross, embarrassing crush on him. Sure, it’d taken him eons to come to the conclusion, and then some to convince Thorin he felt the same way and wasn’t just pity-dating him, until they were finally inseparable and insufferable. 

“The pining?” Melkor asked. “It gave me by-proxy depression.”

“You prefer them exchanging spit in the middle of a dining establishment?”

Melkor hummed, swirling his mocha like a vintage wine in a fancy heirloom glass. “Baggins _does_ own the place. He can discourage clients as he pleases.”

“Good point, he’s in charge — I can report him for various health violations.”

A lot had changed over the years, and yet some things remained stagnant and stable. Mairon still hated people, physical contact, and any affection that wasn’t between him and Melkor. Melkor hated anything Mairon hated, in addition to inconveniently packaged groceries and poorly shined shoes. Most important was the fact that they hated things together, further enforcing their childish _us against the world_ mentality. It was a modern form of romance.

“ _Oh_. It’s about to get worse.”

Mairon was seated with his back to the room, and Melkor’s foreboding warning sent a chill running down his spine. Worse than the geezers sucking faces by the counter? Please, god, no. 

He twisted around in time to hear Thranduil request his non-fat, soy-based, no gluten, blah blah bullshit, I’m a vegan latte. Even his damn _tone_ was pretentiously regal, and Mairon had the sudden, burning urge to shave his eyebrows off in his sleep.

Of course, Melkor’s sense of premonition was eerie: bad went to worse. 

Thranduil held out his credit card with a graceful flick of his wrist and turned to look at Thorin, who refused to leave Bilbo’s side like the embarrassing old man he was, suctioned on like a lovesick octopus.

“Tell me, Thorin, how do you go from someone like _me_ to someone like _him_? No offense, Mr. Baggins.”

Bilbo thrust the card back at Thranduil with a smidge more force than the transaction warranted. “None taken. Please don’t fight again, just take your coffee and go, let Bard know I said hello. Thorin, put your fists down.”

Thranduil smiled politely at Thorin and his simmering rage, teasing mockery beaming through because he was being an irksome shit for the sake of it. 

He receded to the end of the counter to wait for his order. “As you wish. Lovely to see you both.”

Mairon watched the mesmerizing swish of white blonde hair — he missed having his own to boast and desperately wanted to stalk over and demand Thranduil tell him what conditioner he used. He didn’t, though; he knew his pride would eat him alive if he debased himself in front of a lesser being.

He sucked it up and turned back to Melkor, who was watching him with a knowing smirk. There was usually one of two things on Mairon’s mind when his brow furrowed in agitation like that: his hair, or a passing dog he wished he could steal and run away with.

“Stop that,” Mairon snapped. “I hate him.”

“You hate everyone. Except me.”

“I do hate you a bit less than the rest of them. Tell me, what did you do to Fëanor?”

The question was as random as they came.

“Fëanor,” Melkor echoed emptily.

“Yes. He doesn’t bother you like that anymore,” Mairon elaborated nodding his head towards Thranduil’s retreating form. “Did you get rid of him?”

Melkor allowed himself a dramatic pause. “That’s confidential.”

Mairon glowered. “There’s no secrets between us. I need to know so I can tell the cops where _not_ to look for his body when they come knocking.”

“ _When_ they come? You’ve so little faith in me?”

“My apologies, I’m sure you’re perfectly adept at burying bodies. I’m glad, though, that he’s stopped bugging you.”

It was a given, that if Bilbo were in earshot he’d politely admonish them for bonding over murder, however theoretical, in the presence of children. 

“Are you glad because he was the personification of a poorly executed informercial that they just wouldn’t stop playing, or because no one’s bothering us anymore and we’re all the more reclusive?”

Melkor knew very well both answers were correct, but conceding and admitting defeat wasn’t part of Mairon’s repertoire, and there was no way he’d let Melkor win. Instead, he said: “I wasn’t gonna share you with that prick.”

“He never stood a chance against you.”

Mairon took a sip of his coffee. “Oh, I know that. I just wasn’t fond of the looming threat.”

There were things that they still hated, and things that they still loved. Mairon’s arrogance had never faltered: his eyes still gleamed with the same malicious glint when he knew he was right, when he commanded  a room with his presence alone. It still made Melkor go weak in the knees, leaving him thankful that he was sitting and not falling to the ground in the middle of the neighborhood gossip factory.

And Mairon could see right through the following cover up act: Melkor cleared his throat and turned his attention to his coffee, pretending he hadn’t just been marveling at Mairon’s very existence. Married for nearly a decade, and he still went fuzzy at the edges with every little thing Mairon did. What Mairon loved most, was that it was only for him, that only he could see this side of Melkor that the rest of the world had no idea existed.

Content, Mairon hummed. “Tell me something — ”

Melkor didn’t glance up from his cup. “Today is Bastille Day in France.”

Mairon blinked. “Fascinating, thank you. What I meant was, do you think we’re going to keep this up forever?”

“This?”

“You’re abashed in that serious way of yours and I’m openly flirting. I can honestly say you still look at me like I’m the reason the sun rises every morning, and I can say, truthfully, that you’re the reason I wake up each day. We’ve yet to slip out of the mythical honeymoon phase.”

Melkor remained silent, then motioned abstractly with his straw, dripping his mocha over both the floor and the table. “You’re asking me if there’s any way to escape this loop? I can’t help you if I’m part of the problem — I’ll always look at you like that.”

“And I’ll always feel the same way about you.” Mairon visibly bit his lower lip. “I can’t believe I brought this up in public. We’re being disgusting and those children could overhear and spread nasty rumors that we’ve got souls, or some such nonsense.”

“But?” Melkor prompted, naturally failing to conceal his fond smirk.

Mairon took a cautious look over his shoulder to make certain they weren’t being eavesdropped on. The tiny redhead sitting alone in the booth closest to them seemed harmless enough, though he may or may not have been one of Fëanor’s litter: they were all equally ugly and entirely unremarkable. At least the younger ones were cowards, and could be intimidated into staying quiet. 

“But,” Mairon continued, “I’m happy it’s like this. I _want_ us to keep this up forever. And just so you know, it’s probably your fault that I’m gushing about my feelings now, let alone in a public setting; you shouldn’t have gone soft earlier. You made this happen.” 

“Good thing I did. You only ever blush when you’re flustered.”

Mairon silenced a groan and scrambled out of his seat quickly, with no finesse. Melkor watched him go with curious eyes, no longer bothering to hide his glee.

“You’re awful, and I’m leaving right this instant,” Mairon trailed off and honest to god _laughed_ , meeting Melkor’s grin with an incredulous smile. “We have a reputation to live up to. You can't just say things like that and expect me not to crumble apart, and I sure as hell can’t allow myself to crumble apart in public.”

“How about at home? Can I continue this at home?” 

“ _No_ ,” Mairon managed, “absolutely not. Get up, we’re leaving. I need a break from this cuddly persona you’ve adopted, and you’re sleeping on the couch tonight. Stop _laughing_ — someone might see. Come on, dial up your stoic exterior for a moment.”

 

Melkor didn’t, for the record, stop grinning for a single moment and Mairon didn’t, for the record, make him sleep on the couch.

Amrod, for the record, had heard everything, and tucked it away for a later time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> they're evil, but they're also soft n squishy
> 
> share ur ideas/headcanons with me on [twitter](http://www.twitter.com/finaIizer) & [tumblr](http://www.badspacedads.tumblr.com) !!! i'm always looking forward to hearing from u guys!!


	19. A Way With Words

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which everything is almost the same, except Arda is a small suburban town in the middle of nowhere and everyone's favorite dark lords are that weird, annoying couple that live in the old, haunted looking house down the road.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's not that easy spying on your old boss when your new boss is also ur lover boy tbh
> 
> _timeline: around 5 months after first meeting_

It was naive to think the whole master plan would be easy to execute — after all, it was dangerous, it was illegal, and put both careers and carefully crafted professional relationships at risk. That, and Melkor was, excuse the French, a _headass_ who couldn’t quite reign in his adrenaline-seeking temperament no matter how desperately Mairon begged him to.

So, there Mairon was, tiredly flicking through his store-bought salad with a flimsy spork to find a single patch of lettuce that wasn’t dry and bland, when _someone_ swung open the door to the employees’ break room with little finesse. 

It was too good to be true, Mairon realized, to think he’d get away with corporate espionage and _treason_ without a scratch to show for it. He was careful, yes, and he was exceptionally adept at pulling the puppet strings from behind the curtain, but there were evidently external forces at play, making damn sure he spent the remainder of his days behind bars.

“What are you doing here?” he hissed, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. A few sprinkles of carrot shavings slipped free onto his lap as he gaped at Melkor, of all people, prancing into the (blessedly empty) room. 

Melkor — looking otherworldly in his three piece navy suit and loose ponytail, thank you, lord, thank you very much, _but that still didn’t explain what the hell he was doing there_ — stared right back at Mairon with just as much incredulity. 

Instead of answering the question he’d been posed, he barked out a vaguely dismayed laugh. “Don’t tell me you’re one of those people.”

Mairon stabbed his fork into the nearly empty plastic bowl. “What people?”

“Stock Photos man laughing with a salad at his desk,” Melkor clarified, and Mairon barely resisted the impulsive urge to flick a desaturated cherry tomato at his forehead. “What’s with the glare? I could take a picture right now and it wouldn’t be any different from those memes.”

“Technically,” Mairon said slowly, glancing cautiously at the entranceway, “this isn’t my desk. I don’t have a desk at all, really, save for that shitty slab of wood at the entrance to Manwë’s grand lair.”

Melkor inched closer. “If you worked for me, you’d have your own office. Top floor, mahogany furniture.”

Never taking his eyes off the door, Mairon fired back, “I _do_ work for you. Still no desk.”

Eventually, Melkor took the hint. “No one’s going to walk in. The halls were empty on my way here. It’s not like I’ve got you bent over the table; we’re just talking, wholly professional,” he trailed off, pausing to take in Mairon’s gritted teeth as he gripped his spork and willed his body not to react to the scenario Melkor had offered. “And I meant employed on the record, regarding the office. Currently, you’re off the payroll, due to the — _unfortunate_ legal penalties that would result from our breaking the law, and so on. I will get you a desk one day, I promise — the best desk.”

Mairon said nothing.

Melkor huffed. “Will you stop fidgeting? There’s no surveillance in here.”

There was another, longer pause before Mairon spoke, “I know. Sorry. It’s been a long day. I’m tired and overreacting, but it’s my neck out on the line here and I just can’t be too careful.”

Melkor took a step closer, then another, his features relaxing into something far softer, and less Melkor-like. The sharp smirk was gone, replaced by something akin to real, human emotion.

He crouched down next to where Mairon was seated and stared up at him. Mairon stared back, unwavering but doubtful of Melkor’s intentions. 

“You’re too clever for your own good,” Melkor said then, twirling an errant strand of Mairon’s hair between long fingers. “They would never be smart enough catch you; and by the time they’d realize all you’ve done, you’d be long gone. Your work in the shadows is remarkable. Highly commendable.”

Mairon fought back a fond smile. “You’re very melodramatic. Has anyone ever told you that?”

“Please, that’s the very reason my parents wrote me out of their will; they couldn’t stand the theatrics.”

Mairon’s lips twisted up despite his best intentions and Melkor met him halfway, tugging him deeper into the kiss with a vice grip around his wrist.

They pulled apart far too suddenly, Mairon shooting a paranoid glance at the doorway, Melkor sighing in disappointment. 

“No one’s coming. Let me kiss you, beautiful.”

“Really, we’re going to do this right in front of my salad?”

Desperate, Melkor pulled at him again, and Mairon indulged him with a brief peck on the lips before reclining back into the stiff plastic chair.

It was tough, resisting Melkor and his pouty blue eyes, but someone had to be the sensible one, the one to make sure they weren’t caught lip locking in the staff room with Manwë himself a few doors down. 

Melkor rocked back on his heels, wallowing in tragic rejection.

“Did you come here to personally evaluate where my loyalties lie?” Mairon asked, out of the blue. “If so, you’re horribly reckless and I deserve to get caught for working with you. Unless you’re here because you can’t stand to be apart, in which case I can forgive you for being lovestruck, but not for being irresponsible.”

Melkor stood then, taking a few steps over to the counter. He leaned back with his hands on the cheap linoleum and explained: “My lawyer decided to backstab me and take the day off to take her son to the dentist, so I’m stuck delivering some nonsensical paperwork to Manwë _personally_. He’s keeping me waiting,” he added, with a deeply annoyed huff.

“He’s not dropping the lawsuit?”

“He’s never let me get away with anything, ever. Little brother has to bring me down to make himself feel powerful.”

Mairon grimaced.

Melkor continued. “ — And so, since I was already here and waiting, I figured I’d track you down and stare at you all heart-eyed until you kicked me away.”

Mairon let himself laugh. After all, he was equally _pathetically_ in love, and rationality tended to fly out the window in such situations. They were a suitable pair, Mairon’s analytical personality making up for Melkor’s lack of immediate foresight. But as the cliches went, the tale was as old as time: love was blind, and _blinding_. 

Mairon picked the plastic lid up off the table and capped the salad, tossing the remainder of the stale leaves into the nearby bin. It was gross and he could do better — like send an intern over to Chipotle, claim it was a direct order from their boss. He made a mental note to abuse his meager power at the next best opportunity.

“How can you not get enough? We’re never apart for longer than a day.”

Melkor shrugged noncommittally. “Yes, but that’s somehow not enough. Your ugly mugs are in my cupboards, and half your clothes scattered around the house, and I could still use more _you_  in my life. Hell, you may as well move in at this rate.”

Mairon froze, ceasing his nervous nail-picking, an awful habit he had zero control over. Finally, he asked, “Are you serious? Or is this another one of those pick up lines you blurt out without consulting your brain to mouth filter — ”

Melkor took a whole two seconds to mull it over. “Yes, actually, fully serious. If you want.”

Mairon instinctively rolled his fingers into fists to quell the giddy happiness bubbling uncomfortably in his chest. He wasn’t used to being excited, let alone ecstatic. 

“I’d love to, but you’re not ready to meet Wolf.”

“Not ready or not worthy?”

Mairon cocked his head in consideration. “ _Well_ — ”

The door burst open, one of the new, meek interns poking his head in without invitation. Mairon bit his tongue and immediately hid his grin behind a sharp mask — he wanted to strangle the intruder for interrupting a _very fucking important conversation_ , but murder was far more illegal than espionage and Mairon didn’t want to spend the rest of his life’s lunch breaks in a prison cafeteria. 

“There you are,” the intern half shouted, visibly nervous, staring at Melkor, then added a hasty, polite “ — _sir_. Sorry. Your brother is ready for you. I thought you’d be in the empty conference room downstairs, I didn’t think — ”

“It’s fine,” Melkor cut him off. His tone had taken a turn: stiff and cold in comparison to the honey covered words he’d used with Mairon. Then again, only Mairon could melt the layers of ice trapping his heart — _ugh, no, lovesick babbling, quiet, brain._ “Just lead the way.”

The intern paled in fear and nodded rapidly. Mairon had half a mind to cross one leg over the other before his _enjoyment_ of the scene got the better of him. Everyone was terrified of Melkor, and Melkor got to his knees for him — it did wonders to Mairon’s already impressive ego.

“We’ll continue this later,” Melkor said, dropping an honest to god _wink_ before disappearing out the door and into the hall. He didn’t seem very nervous for one heading to confront their estranged brother over a multimillion dollar lawsuit, as the guilty party no less.

Mairon sucked in a sharp breath, because he was whipped and desperately needed to clear his head before he did something stupid and irrational, like got himself off in the undersized employees-only bathroom down the hall. He wished he still had his spork so he could snap it in half.

Yes, melodramatics were Melkor’s forte, but Mairon could say with a clear conscience and no hyperbole, that Melkor was going to be the death of him.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im finaiizer on ko-fi + catch me on [twitter](http://www.twitter.com/finaIizer) & [tumblr](http://www.badspacedads.tumblr.com)
> 
> this was written 2-ish months ago my apologies for the outdated salad meme


	20. The Darkest Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which everything is almost the same, except Arda is a small suburban town in the middle of nowhere and everyone's favorite dark lords are that weird, annoying couple that live in the old, haunted looking house down the road.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope y'all are having a spooky month ;)
> 
> _timeline: around 6-7 years after first meeting_

There was something angelic about Mairon before noon, when the golden rays of mid-morning sunlight filtered in through the window and illuminated his hair into a coppery halo. Of course, that was a heavily exaggerated variation of reality, but Melkor had a weakness or two, all related to Mairon and Mairon’s hair.

Melkor took a few steps toward the bed and deposited the tray he was holding on the empty side he’d occupied for a few hours the night before, careful not to wake Mairon — that, after all, had to be done the right way. He was a pretty romantic guy, all things considered: he let Mairon sleep in past noon on the weekends much like a hungover teenager, made him breakfast in bed complete with freshly squeezed orange juice, and even made the extra effort not to dip under the covers with his icy fingertips and wake Mairon by poking cold hands where cold hands did not belong.

Instead, making sure not to rattle the tray, he crawled onto the bed and loomed over Mairon, shrouding them from the world in a sweeping cascade of black hair. Mairon, predictably, did not stir.

Melkor settled in comfortably, elbows strategically braced on either side of Mairon’s head, before ducking down and dusting a brief kiss over the bridge of his nose, then another, and another, when Mairon did little more than snuffle in his sleep. 

If there was one upside to chronic insomnia, it was the possibility of watching Mairon sleep. His features relaxed into an expressionless mask, though very much unlike the one he wore to keep up pretenses and further his _bad bitch_ agenda. When he slept, the face beneath the mask evened out as well, peaceful in a way he could never be during waking hours: there was too much to do, too much to consider, too much on his mind. It made Melkor regret every little thing he ever did to make Mairon worry, to bend creases into something so perfect.

When the insistent kisses did nothing to rouse Mairon, Melkor shifted closer, tightening his knees around Mairon’s hips to squeeze him awake. He leaned closer and nudged his nose against Mairon’s before dragging his lips over soft skin to Mairon’s ear and muttering, just in case, “Don’t freak out and startle awake, you’ll spill the orange juice.”

Mairon snuffled again, and Melkor gave his hips another squeeze in quick succession. 

Then, golden eyes flickered open and gaped blearily before snapping into focus with a flash of panic. The reaction may have had something to do with the unexpected weight over his body and the ominous curtain of dark hair blocking out his peripheral vision. 

He jerked awake, and Melkor instinctively rearranged his grip onto Mairon’s shoulders to keep him in place.

“Don’t move,” he warned.

Mairon made a sleepy choking sound. “What?”

“Orange juice,” Melkor explained, uselessly vague, and motioned to the other side of the bed with a sloppy tilt of his head.

Mairon spared a quick glance at the breakfast tray and let himself sink back into the sheets. 

"Lovely, but not a good enough reason to give me a heart attack this early in the day. What’s the occasion? What time is it?”

Melkor hummed, relinquishing his grip on Mairon and sitting back on his heels, careful not to crush Mairon and/or his softer parts under his weight. 

“Something past ten; and I just couldn’t stand to watch you pathetically eat  granola bars in the morning. It’s so sad: they’re so dry and tasteless. You deserve better.”

Mairon grumbled something unintelligible. “I never have the time nor patience to prepare a breakfast buffet. Thank you, though, it looks wonderful. Shove over so I can make good use of it before it goes cold.”

Melkor did as he was told and flipped onto his back at the foot of the bed, as Mairon struggled to unwrap himself from the covers and sit up in a vertical enough position to eat.

“You must have been a dream back home with these — I can hardly imagine why they liked Manwë more.”

Melkor didn’t flinch at the comment, not like he would have if it’d come from anyone else. As far as he was concerned, he and Mairon knew everything about each other, from each other's favorite colors to their darkest, most disturbing thoughts and worries. Mairon knew all about Melkor's unsavory past, and he in turn knew all about Mairon’s desire to break free from an old life that'd once constrained him.

“Yes, well — ” he mumbled, staring at the ceiling, “Manwë didn’t get expelled from boarding school at age fourteen for rolling a joint in the locker room. Besides, I burned my hands on the stovetop once, when I was fairly young, and got banned from the kitchen, so I couldn’t make my mother fancy breakfast even if I’d wanted to. Of course, that would require her being around enough for me to have time to — ” He trailed off with bitter twist to his lips. “ _No_. We’re rescheduling this therapy session. I can’t ruin the mood, not today.”

Mairon bit into his second piece of French toast, careful not to sprinkle crumbs onto the sheets. If there was one thing they could agree on, it was that food did not belong under the covers. 

“What’s today?”

Melkor turned his head and Mairon was instantly unsettled by the manic sparkle in his eyes. 

“ _Halloween_.”

 

/

 

It was no secret that holidays were overrated and ceaselessly exploited by the grinding gears of capitalism. Halloween was no exception, of course, but there were certain upsides to a day celebrating gore and terror.

A few years back, Melkor had had the brilliant idea to turn their front yard into an epic, interactive horror show to freak out the neighborhood children and anyone else who might have attempted to approach the house under the pretense of trick or treating. As luck would have it, of course, life had gotten in the way of furthering the plan —  _until now._

The ultimate goal was to spend a ridiculous sum on hiring professional decorators and minimum wage goons to play the ghouls, but that too had backfired when each FX company Melkor tried had told him, in no specific terms, that they refused to partake in an amateur attempt at scaring innocent children shitless and scarring them for the remainder of their tiny, miserable lives.

Admittedly, some of Melkor’s ideas had been slightly beyond the culturally acceptable norm, and their rejection was perfectly understandable. Unfortunately, that meant they were left to their own devices.

Which brought them to the stone walled basement beneath the ground, staring at the mounds of cardboard boxes lined neatly against the walls. Mairon strongly regretted forgetting to label where he’d stashed the mounds of autumn-time decorations Maeglin had forced onto him a few years back.

Melkor was no help — rather than help look, he was glancing around in nervous flurries. 

“What? What is it?” Mairon finally snapped. He was on his knees in front of one of the boxes, struggling to pull it open, and Melkor met his glare with a questioning look. “You keep side-eyeing the shadows like something is going to materialize out of thin air and pull you into the void.”

Melkor bit at his lower lip. “Do you ever get the creeps, coming down here alone? Ever since monsters started spawning in my basement in Minecraft, I get serious chills down my spine when I come do the laundry.”

That got Mairon’s attention. He cocked his head. “Is that why you never do the laundry?”

Melkor huffed. “I do — _sometimes_. Fine. Only when you tell me to, but I do. On occasion. At least I have a legitimate reason. What’s yours, for not cleaning out the shower drain?”

Mairon _glowered_. “My hair sticks to my head, thank you very much. I don’t know what you’re implying.”

Melkor hummed, unconvinced.

“ _Melkor_.”

Melkor held his hands up in mock surrender. “Alright then, I don’t know. Maybe Maedhros breaks in on occasion to use our bathroom. I don’t know how else to explain it. Maybe a poltergeist — a dead relative of yours, perhaps, would explain the _ginger_ hair.”

Mairon shoved back yet another box, moving on to the next. “If you value your wellbeing, darling, don’t imply I’m _shedding_. You ought to know better. And you ought to do the laundry more often — I promise there’s no pixelated demons in here. Can you check the last two over there? I’ll finish this row.”

Melkor groaned inwardly but promptly followed his orders. 

“Did you consider,” he asked, as he tugged open the topmost box, “that maybe you’d stashed all the spooky shit in the attic instead?”

Mairon closed a carton full of gaudy Christmas baubles. _No, thank you, Maeglin_ , he transmitted, hoping the message would magically ingrain itself into his friend’s subconscious in time for the next holiday season. 

“No, I haven’t put anything — ” he trailed off, looking up at Melkor with incredulity. “ — _we don’t have an attic._ ”

It was Melkor’s turn to shoot over an inquisitive look. “Yes, we do.”

Mairon shifted around to fully face Melkor. “We — since when do we have an attic? Don't fucking lie.”

“ _What_ — ” Melkor dropped his arms to his sides. “It's at the top, obviously, that's where. Behind the bookcase in the second guest room, there’s that shitty old door that we keep covered to block out the drafts. It’s always been there. This is a huge, ridiculously tall house, of course there’s an attic.”

Mairon actually sat back in surprise, unceremoniously dropping onto his ass on the concrete floor. “I was literally never made aware of this. I don’t — why would I ever even move that bookshelf? Are you actually serious, we have an attic?”

Melkor shook his head in disbelief. He pushed aside yet another unsuccessful cardboard box and lowered himself to the ground to inspect the last one. “Mairon, seven years you’ve lived here — ”

“What’s up there?”

Melkor whistled a long sigh. “Honestly, I forget. Spare furniture, antiques — bits that came with the house. The devil himself drops by every once in a while, probably: it’s rather comfortable, with the couches and everything. They just need a proper dusting.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“I can’t believe this.”

Melkor turned back to his work and peeled open the cardboard flaps, only to choke out an aborted wheeze and stumble back.

“What?” Mairon stared. “ _What?_ ”

Melkor stared at the box like it’d personally murdered his parents in front of him, hands balled into white knuckled fists, before snapping his head towards Mairon in outrage. 

“You could have said there’d be huge rubber spiders, you asshole. You know I can’t stand spiders.”

“Yay, you found it,” Mairon deadpanned, failing to push back an amused twist of a smile. “I’m sorry, I suppose, though this was very enjoyable. You went so white I thought you’d found a real, rotting corpse. What else is in there?”

Melkor was still jittery, despite his best intentions to quell the irrationally rampant pounding of his heart. “There’s at least three spiders, fuck them. And fuck Maeglin, by extension. Who’d stash a body here, anyway? It’s so much smarter to bury one in the wood’s behind Thranduil’s — that way he’s the first one under fire if they find it.”

“Noted. It’s far too warm here, anyway.” Mairon decided, finally walking over to inspect the contents of the carton. Melkor stepped aside to let him, further distancing himself from the creepy crawly rubber atrocities. “Weird, isn't it? It’s warmer here than outside, and we’re underground. I’m surprised Gandalf doesn’t break in and squat here when he drifts through town.”

Melkor considered that. “He might. You spent seven years unaware of an attic; maybe this is another one of those things that slips under your radar.”

Mairon shoved the flaps shut with enough force to dent the cardboard. “You’re insufferable. Take this,” he ordered, pointing sharply at the box, “and bring it upstairs. And then you’re taking me to the attic immediately, you lying bastard.”

Melkor did as he was told, yet again, without a word of protest. 

Mairon led the way up the stairs in silence, until he reached the top where he swiveled precariously in his oversized Uggs, and stared Melkor down with a burning gaze. 

“The next time you’re down here with the laundry, I hope Gandalf himself materializes out of the shadows and takes you under. It’s the least you deserve.”

 

/

 

It came as a (not so) slight shock to Mairon that there was, in fact, an attic. Melkor’s desperate _I thought you knew about this_ wasn’t a sufficient answer, and Mairon fought the need to kick something small and vulnerable to work out his rage.

Although, he’d gotten a free exhibit of Melkor’s upper body strength as he pulled the heavy bookshelf aside to reveal the door, so he couldn’t complain about _every single_ aspect of the situation. That had been good. Those had been some good biceps. 

Mairon blinked back into awareness, realizing he was blatantly staring at the soft stitching of Melkor’s sweater, actively thinking about his arms. There was no drool involved, at least.

They were seated side by side on the front steps, using whatever means they had at their disposal to deter happy children from approaching their sanctuary. In other words: themselves. Costumes were strictly unnecessary given their reputation, as well as Melkor’s intimidating stature and Mairon’s blood curdling ability to give off an air of otherworldly terror; and one sharp death glare was enough to send every tiny, brightly adorned clown jogging back to mommy and daddy down the block, frightened tears smearing tracks in their face paint. 

They’d stuck up flaming torches on either side of the stairs to add to the atmosphere, and brought out a bottle of wine to share between themselves as the hours ticked by. Once the sun had gone down the temperature had dropped significantly, and Mairon had been forced to make a break for it during a child-less window and fetch a coat from upstairs. He’d come back to the startling sight of a cheerful little boy in a raggedy monster costume taking a fistful of Jolly Ranchers from the bowl at the foot of the steps and skipping off. 

It’s not that they didn’t _have_ a bowl of candy laid out — they weren’t complete savages — more so the general population of individuals under fifteen was too scared shitless to approach them, which was, after all, the fun part.

Mairon snatched the bottle back from Melkor’s fingers, where it was loosely dangling. 

“Don’t tell me you’re drunk. If anything, _I_ should be drunk.”

Melkor looked over at him. “Your system is burning the alcohol at a quicker rate to make up for lost body heat.”

Mairon didn’t bother fake laughing at the lazy attempt at a snide joke. Instead, he noted the way the flickering beam of the torches seemed to illuminate Melkor’s very being, casting shadows across his sharp features, and spreading a warm glow over the smooth panes of his hair. It wasn’t too far fetched — Melkor’s self proclaimed _dark lord_ status — he just about seemed to be the type to have been a vindictive noble in a past life, someone with a dark past, and even darker secrets.

“Tell me about the spiders,” Mairon asked offhandedly. 

“No. Don’t bring up the spiders. Burn them, or deliver them back to Maeglin with my therapy bills.”

Mairon was relentless. “Childhood trauma?”

Melkor made grabby hands, demanding the bottle. It was high time to open up a second. “Let’s say. Big tarantula. Unpleasant. Not a good experience in general. I’m not a fan.”

“Poor baby,” Mairon muttered, reaching over to comb Melkor’s hair back from his face in a coddling gesture. 

Melkor leaned out of reach. “Very funny. I’m surprised you manage to stay hydrated, with how awfully you fear water.”

Mairon pulled his hand back as if burned and _pouted_ —  in all honesty, he may have been more than slightly tipsy. 

“I can’t swim, Melkor. Of course it scares me.”

“It’s never to late to learn,” Melkor pointed out, stupidly, naively.

Mairon threw his hands up. “I can’t learn because the fear paralyzes me whenever I step into water _because_ I can’t swim. Circle of life. Forget about it.”

Melkor snapped his mouth shut and made the smart move to take another lengthy swig of wine, rather than fire back a smartass comment and have Mairon ditch him for a warm bath.

After a while, Mairon’s halfhearted anger dissipated with the steady flow of alcohol through his blood, and he leaned his head on Melkor’s shoulder in a sleepy droop. 

“How many children came by?”

“Just the one. Brave kid. He’s going places.”

“We’re too scary,” Mairon muttered. His words weren’t slurring quite yet, but the pacing was atrociously off. 

“Does that bother you?”

“No, it’s — perfect. I have you all to myself.”

Melkor cracked a genuine smile. He let his head drop atop Mairon’s, pulling him closer with his free hand around a thickly bundled waist. In typical Mairon fashion, the culprit in question was noticeably shivering. 

“That does sound perfect. Now, let’s get you inside. No one else is going to come by at this hour.”

Mairon made it four steps inside the house, shoes messily kicked off by the doorway, before deciding, “I won’t make it up the stairs. I’m taking the couch. Not because I’m drunk — ” he added quickly, before Melkor could get away with a sing-songy _I told you so,_ “ — just tired.”

Melkor watched Mairon trudge to the aforementioned couch and crash down in a tangled mess of his coat and rumpled blankets. 

“We’ll hardly fit together.”

Mairon already had his eyes shut, apparently comfortable in his disheveled position, when he grumbled, “You go to bed, I don’t mind. I’ll probably wake up in the middle of the night, overheating, and crawl upstairs.”

Melkor was taken aback by the mere notion that Mairon would think he’d abandon him to the desolate darkness of the living room. He turned on his heel, squinting his way into the kitchen — the downstairs illuminated solely by the porch light out front, and the eerie torches shimmering in their dying throes — with the intention of making Mairon a cup of tea to guzzle down when he awoke at three in the morning: disoriented, groggy and no doubt nauseous. The sleeping arrangements could be sorted later — there were plenty of creative ways for two grown men to snuggle on a reasonably sized couch.

It wasn’t until a few minutes later, when the tea was steaming and set down on the coffee table that — 

Mairon shot up, sharp and alert.

“ _Oh my god,_ ” he muttered, “it was Ungoliant’s pet tarantula wasn’t it? I’m right aren’t I? Oh my god, I am. I thought you had some nasty traumatic experience as a child, but _no_. You were a grown man, and it was your ex-girlfriend’s tiny pet spider. I’m going to lose my mind. Goodnight, Melkor.”

— Melkor decided he was most certainly sleeping upstairs after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm finaiizer on ko-fi + send me all ur thoughts/ideas/questions on [twitter](http://www.twitter.com/finaIizer) & [tumblr](http://www.badspacedads.tumblr.com)
> 
> this is the last draft i had saved for this fic, so feel free to suggest some holiday season prompts [finger guns]


	21. Light the Fuse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which everything is almost the same, except Arda is a small suburban town in the middle of nowhere and everyone's favorite dark lords are that weird, annoying couple that live in the old, haunted looking house down the road.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _timeline: around 6-7 years after first meeting, set 2 months after the previous chap_

“I can come up with at least seven solid reasons, off the top of my head, why that’s an awful idea.”

Melkor pouted, albeit forcefully. He wasn’t used to being told no, and especially not in this case, when the best plan he’d had in years was being shot down with little care for his feelings.

“Try me,” he snapped. He’d just come back from the basement and stood in full-winter gear by the doorway beside a tower of worn cardboard boxes. The pom-poms atop his ridiculous hat waggled cheerfully as he tilted his chin up, leveling Mairon with a glare from across the room, daring him to list his excuses.

Mairon, seated at the dinner table in naught more than a fuzzy charcoal bathrobe, took a sip of his coffee and pointedly set the mug down.

It was too early to think properly, let alone drive hours upstate on one of Melkor’s whims, and deface personal property. He hadn’t even had the time to shower yet, instead bunching his hair up into a knot at the back of his head, in between feeding the dog and making sure Melkor didn’t rush headfirst into his immature, impulsive grand scheme.

“Okay. One, Manwë still hates you. Obviously. Probably. Not to sound too much like a cheap exposition character, but you lied to him, you stole from him — some ideas, some tens of thousands of dollars, you cheated him — likewise, financially and out of his creative content, and betrayed the trust he had in you as his brother. Not to mention you one upped him and got out of everything relatively unscathed, let alone richer. And me, I helped you do all that, except I was right there, every day, lying to his face and smiling all pretty while I sharpened my knife behind my back. So, believe me, when I say that breaking in and hanging up miles of Christmas lights to spell out profanities on the walls of his manor is an absolutely _shit_ idea.”

Melkor pursed his lips as he gave the matter some thought, trying to find a loophole in Mairon’s genuinely airtight reasoning. The thermostat had been turned up in his absence, as he’d dug through the cursed piles in the basement, and he was now sweating unpleasantly through his sweater and coat.

“He won’t — ”

Mairon interrupted. “ — won’t know it was you? Us, whatever? Of course he will. I’m quite sure any other competitors he might have in the business have better things to do than break their necks trying to spell out _fuck_ over the foyer windows. He’ll call the police. Keep in mind you have priors.”

Melkor reached up and tugged his hat off by the pom-poms, resulting in an electrically charged mess atop his head; the flyaway strands sticking up every which way. He didn’t bother to smooth them down as he shed his coat and dropped it onto the couch along with the hat on his way to the table.

He sat heavily, the legs of the chair scraping unpleasantly across the flooring as he leaned forward and plucked Mairon’s mug right out of his hands. It was too sweet for his liking, naturally, and he returned it with a grimace of distaste, as Mairon watched on in thinly veiled amusement.

Mairon had the mind to crack a joke at the frown lines adorning Melkor’s face, and how much his overall air of displeasure made him look like an overgrown child, but there was something beneath the spoiled pout that was the slightest bit too sharp — too on edge, too cruel. And Melkor’s moods were fickle, any criticism to his person wasn’t taken lightly when the tension got too tight, so Mairon preferred to tactically ease his way out of the situation rather than forcibly drive his point across and trigger a nuclear explosion.

Melkor spoke first, before Mairon could suggest a more responsible, non-criminal alternative, like chamomile tea and a _Saw_ marathon on Netflix.

“What the hell are we going to do with all these lights then, you bastard?”

Which was when it clicked. Mairon, studiously not taking offense at the name-calling, suddenly leaned forward and grasped Melkor’s hands in both of his. The sharp lurch shook the table, the coffee in Mairon’s mug splashing precariously within its confines.

“That’s brilliant.”

“Is it?” Melkor asked, looking at down at their hands, then back up at Mairon’s face, and the all too devious glimmer in his eyes. “What is?”

“We have too many lights, we’re out of basement space, and Manwë was the first name on your shit list that came to mind, yes?”

Melkor nodded as if that much was blatantly obvious. He spared a glance at the coffee again, wistfully wishing he could get up and make himself a stronger, sugar-free variant without offending Mairon by dislodging himself from his sudden, rapt attention.

“He shouldn’t be the first name.”

Melkor raised a brow, dragging his eyes away from the mug. “He shouldn’t?”

Mairon let his hands go with a huff; he was far too perceptive for his own good. “Go, make your coffee,” he said, then muttered something along the lines of _impatient child_ under his breath, as Melkor sprang to his feet and crossed to the kitchen. Mairon waited in relative silence, one hand wrapped around the comfortable warmth of his mug, the other pushing back errant strands of hair.

The steaming hiss of the espresso machine snapped him back to attention, and he looked up to find Melkor watching him curiously from where he leaned against the counter in wait.

“So?” 

“So,” Mairon echoed. “Who you really should be focusing your negative energy on is not the person you hate most, but the one who put you in this predicament to begin with.”

Melkor frowned, then it dawned on him.

Mairon grinned. “Absolutely.”

The espresso machine beeped three times then, short and staccato, as if cementing the new, improved version of the plan. From that moment on, it was in motion.

Melkor retrieved his mug from under the machine’s spout and breathed in the scent of fresh liquid happiness. 

“Isn’t he your friend?” he asked Mairon, just in case that minuscule detail was enough to derail the entire operation. “Seems nasty, even for you, to do him dirty like that.”

Mairon took that as a sign to tip his mug back, draining the last of the coffee, and get to his feet. He crossed the short distance to the kitchen in complete silence, quiet and dangerously graceful in his approach, and stopped inches away from where Melkor was standing.

“Look at you,” he drawled. “You’re so angry today, you’re getting frown lines just thinking about those unnecessary boxes taking up crucial space in your home, you poor thing. I don’t like seeing you upset. And if that means I have to stab a friend in the back, so be it.”

Melkor’s lips twisted into a cautious grin, because Mairon was dangerous when he got _ideas_ , and he leaned down to kiss Mairon, chaste and soft, to let him know how pleased he was to have such an evil, _evil_ creature at his disposal, who would do anything to turn his frown upside down.

It came with its downsides, naturally — he likely had a permanent back injury in the making from leaning down like that so often, low enough to wrap his arms around Mairon’s waist and meet his lips.

He blinked, and Mairon pulled away, already making a beeline for the stairs. 

“I need a shower, if we’re to commit a holiday felony. Try not to boil yourself to death seething in silence — maybe channel all that rage into something more productive, and find a way to get Maeglin out of town for a few hours.”

 

/

 

It was getting dark on the drive back from Maeglin's fine establishment, the sun disappearing at a tragically early hour this late into the month of December. They’d taken Mairon’s car, as Mairon had rightfully pointed out Melkor’s would've been too flashy in the suburban wasteland of Maeglin’s motel’s parking lot. 

They stopped at a red light, and Mairon shot a glance at Melkor in the passenger's seat. He’d been unnervingly quiet for the duration of the trip.

“Second thoughts?”

Melkor hummed numbly, like he’d just broken out of a trancelike sleep.  

Mairon drummed his fingertips against the steering wheel and looked back out onto the road. It hadn’t snowed in over a week, and the filthy clumps of white melting on front lawns and street corners alike were the only remaining sign of the recent blizzard. 

“No,” Melkor said eventually. “He brought it upon himself — forced all those lights on us. We’re just repaying the favor. Should’ve taken a picture though, to print and hang on the fridge as our sole decoration this season.”

Mairon huffed a laugh and put the car in drive when the light turned green. “I like how you dotted the _i_ in _shit_. Clever. And you hid the ladder, so it’ll take ages for him to get it all down. It’s horribly attractive, you know, how excited you get when you’re wreaking havoc.”

Melkor absently bit at his lower lip, fully aware of the knowing look Mairon was giving him instead of watching the road. He wasn’t about to promote any foolish in-vehicle behavior — he’d watched enough movies to know how things ended when person A leaned over to unzip person B’s trousers in the middle of afternoon traffic.

“You’re not worried he’ll call the police? Seemed to be your primary concern in Manwë’s case.”

Mairon made an unbothered _eh_ sound in the back of his throat. “If anything, it’ll bother his customers more than it bothers him. I wouldn’t be surprised if he ends up straight up _enjoying_ what we did. It looks so flashy and festive, after all.”

That just wouldn’t do. “That won’t do,” Melkor said aloud. “I thought the whole point of this was to piss him off — where are you going?” he added, when Mairon turned left instead of right at the nearest intersection.

“Supermarket. I want nachos. If he gets a complaint from some mother staying in room 104 that the big, shiny _fuck_ atop the doorframe bothers her and her children, then he’ll have to deal with it. Which is the worst punishment of all, having to deal with children and their overeager parents. If all else fails, though, we can sleep serenely knowing our exploits worked just fine and we’ve freed up a whole load of space in the basement.”

“You’ve thought this all out, haven’t you?”

Mairon furrowed his brows. “Of course I have. Anything else you want? Nachos, rosé, Hot Pockets? I’m thinking garbage for dinner, we can watch _Saw_ , then suffer the consequential stomachaches in the morning.”

The car pulled to a stop in a brightly lit corner of the supermarket parking lot. There were few cars dotting the lot, but none too close to Mairon’s Jeep. Melkor tensed and forced himself to resist the overwhelming urge to drag Mairon onto his lap right then and there, and have his way with him against the dashboard — all a side effect of Mairon’s authoritative tone, his beautifully ordered brain, his methodical, sharp wit; the way he could plan and execute the most devious schemes under the sun and come out on top, without a scratch to show for it.

“Stop thinking about fucking me in the car and give me your wallet. I left mine back home,” Mairon said, amused, from right outside Melkor’s window. 

He had, apparently, made his way around the car in the time it took Melkor to craft his latest fantasy. 

Melkor did as he was told, and poked his wallet at Mairon through the gap in the half-rolled down window. At that specific moment in time, Mairon could’ve asked for his soul, or an entire lung, and Melkor would’ve handed it over.

Mairon pocketed it and kept eye contact for a few seconds longer than strictly necessary, then turned to walk in the direction of the store.

“You can fuck me later,” he promised — _teased_ — calling over his shoulder, mindless of potential eavesdroppers innocently loading their groceries into the trunks of their cars.

 

All in all, the evening turned out to be quite pleasant, if not outright fantastic.

What could’ve ruined it, had Mairon bothered to look at his phone in the midst of getting pressed up against a wall in a haze of pleasure, was the single text message from Maeglin that went unnoticed until the next morning.

 

from: maeglin [1:33 AM] _shit i fuckin love it thank you so much_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> goodness gracious this is one of my fave chaps i've ever written
> 
> \+ snatched the festive swears prompt straight from [AlexanderVargas](http://archiveofourown.org/users/AlexanderVargas)
> 
> [twitter](http://www.twitter.com/finaIizer) & [tumblr](http://finaiizer.tumblr.com)


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